Lives of the necromancers: or, An account of the most eminent persons in successive ages, who have claimed for themselves, or to whom has been imputed by others, the exercise of magical power

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CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY, W.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

LIVES

OF THE

NECROMANCERS;

OR,

AN ACCOUNT OF THE MOST EMINENT PERSONS IN SUCCES-
SIVE AGES WHO HAVE CLAIMED FOR THEMSELVES, QR
TO WHOM HAS BEEN IMPUTED BY OTHERS,

^lu (Sxtrmt jof J^iffiol fp^tott.

By WILLIAM GODWIN.

CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY.

1876.

X^c<^ /i'.-" /^, /<//

W/dfi^

PREFACE.

The main purpose of this book is to exhibit a fair delineation
of the credulity of the human mind. Such an exhibition can-
not fail to be productive of the most salutary lessons.

One view of the subject will teach us a useful pride in the
abundance of our faculties. Without pride man is in reality of
little value. It is pride that stimulates us to all our great under-
takings* Without pride, and the secret persuasion of extraor-
dinary talents, what man would take up the pen with a view to
produce an important work^ whether of imagination and poetry
or of profound science, or of acute and subtle reasoning and in-
tellectual anatomy ? It is pride in this sense that makes the
great general and the consummate legislator, that animates us
to tasks the most laborious, and causes us to shrink from no
difficulty, and to be confounded and overwhelmed with no ob^
stacle that can be interposed in our path.

Nothing can be more striking than the contrast between man
and the inferior animals. The latter live only for the day, and
see for the most part only what is immediately before themi
But man lives in the past and the future. He reasons upon and
improves by the past ; he records the acts of a long series of
generations : and he looks into future time, lays down plans
which he shall be months and years in bringing to maturity, and

vi PREFACE.

contrives machines and delineates systems of education and
government, which may gradually add to the accommodations
of all, and raise the species generally into a nobler and more
honourable character than our ancestors were capable of sus-
taining.

Man looks through nature, and is able to reduce its parts into
a great whole. He classes the beings which are found in it,
both animate and inanimate, delineates and describes them, in-
vestigates their properties, and records their capacities, their
good and evil qualities, their dangers and their uses.

Nor does he only see all that is ; but he also images all thclt
is not. He takes to pieces the substances that are, and com-*
bines their parts into new arrangements. He peoples all the
elements froxil the world of his imagination. It is here that he
is most extraordinary and wonderful The record of what
actuaUy is, and has happened in the series of human events, is
perhaps the smallest part of human history. If we would know
man in all his subtleties, we must deviate into the world of
miracles and sorcery. To know the things that are not, and
cannot be, but have been imagined and believed, is the most
curious chapter in the annals of man. To observe the actual
results of these imaginary phenomena, and the crimes and
cruelties they have caused us to commit, is one of the most in-
structive studies in which we can possibly be engaged. It is
here that man in most astonishing, and that we contemplate with
most admiration the discursive and unbounded nature of his
faculties.

But, if a recollection of the examples of the credulity of the
human mind may in one view supply nourishment to our pride,
it still more obviously tends to teach us sobriety and humiliation.
Man in his genuine and direct sphere is the disciple of reason;
it is by this fatuity that he draws inferences, exerts his prudence,
and displays the ingehuity of machinery, and the subtlety of

PREFACE. vii

system both in natural and moral philosophy. Yet what so
irrational as man ? Not contented with making use of the powers
we possess, for the purpose of conducing to our accommodation
and well-being, we with a daring spirit inquire into the invisible
causes of what we see, and people all nature with gods " of every
shape and size " and angels, with principalities and powers, with
beneficent beings who '^ take charge concerning us lest at any
time we dash our foot against a stone," and with devils who are
perpetually on the watch to perplex us and do us injury. And,
having familiarised our minds with the conception of these beings,
we immediately aspire to hold communion with them. We repre-
sent to ourselves God, as ^* walking in the garden with us in
the cool of the day,** and teach ourselves **n ot to forget to en-
tertain strangers, lest by so doing we should repel angels un*
awares.**

No sooner are we, even in a slight degree, acquainted with the
laws of nature, than we frame to ourselves the idea, by the aid of
some Invisible ally, of suspending their operation, of calling out
meteors in the sky, of commanding storms and tempests, of arrest*
ing the motion of the heavenly bodies, of producing miraculous
cures upon the bodies of our fellow-men, or afflicting them with
disease an^ death, of calling up the deceased from the silence
of the grave, and compelling them to disclose " the secrets of the
world unknown."

But, what is most deplorable, we are not contented to endeavour
to secure the aid of God and good angels, but we also aspire to
enter into alliance with devils, and beings destined for their re*
bellion to suffer eternally the pains of helL As they are sup-
posed to be of a character perverted and depraved, we of course
apply to them principally for purposes of wantonness, or of malice
and revenge. And, in the instances which have occurred only a
few centuries back, the mo?t common idea has been of a com-
pact entered into by an unprincipled and impious human being

viii PREFACE.

with the sworn enemy of God and man, in the result of which
the devil engages to serve the capricious will and perform the
behests of his blasphemous votary for a certain number of years,
while the deluded wretch in return engages to renounce his God
and Saviour, and surrender himself body and soul to the pains
of hell from the end of that term to all eternity. No sooner do
we imagine human beings invested with these wonderful powers,
and conceive them as called into action for the most malignant
purposes, than we become the passive and terrified slaves of the
creatures of our own imaginations, and fear to be assailed at
every moment by beings to whose power we can set no limit, and
whose modes of hostility no human sagacity can anticipate and
provide against. But, what is still more extraordinary, the human
creatures that pretend to these powers have often been found as
completely the dupes of this supernatural machinery, as the most
tiihid wretch that stands in terror at its expected operation ; and
no phenomenon has been more common than the confession of
these allies of hell, that they have verily and indeed held com-
merce and formed plots and conspiracies with Satan.

The consequence of this state of things has been, that criminal
jurisprudence and the last severities of the law have been called
forth to an amazing extent to exterminate witches and* witchcraft.
More especially in the sixteenth century hundreds and thousands
were burned alive within the compass of a small territory ; and
judges, the directors of the scene, a Nicholas Remi, a De Lancre,
and many others, have published copious volumes, entering into
a minute detail of the system and fashion of the witchcraft of
the professors, whom they sent in multitudes to expiate their
depravity at the gallows and the stake.

One useful lesson which we may derive from the detail of these
particulars, is the folly in most cases of imputing pure and un-
mingled hypocrisy to man. The human mind is of so ductile a
character that^like what is affirmed of charity by the apostle, it

PREFACE, ix

'^believeth all things, and endureth all things." We are not at
liberty to trifle with the sacredness of truth. While we persuade
others, we begin to deceive ourselves. Human life is a drama of
that sort, that, while we act our part, and endeavour to do justice
to the sentiments which are put down for us, we begin to believe
we are the thing we would represent

To show, however, the modes in which the delusion acts upon
the person through whom it operates, is not properly the scope of
this book. Here and there I have suggested hints to this pur-
pose, which the curious reader may follow to their furthest extent,
and discover how with perfect good faith the artist may bring him-
self to swallow the grossest impossibilities. But the work I have
written is not a treatise of natural magic. It rather proposes to
display the immense wealth of the faculty of imagination, and
to show the extravagances of which the man may be guilty who
surrenders himself to its guidance.

It is fit, however, that the reader should bear in mind, that
what is put down in this book is but a small part and scantling
of the acts of sorcery and witchcraft which have existed in
human society. They have been found in all ages and countries*
The torrid zone and the frozen north have neither of them es-
caped from a fruitful harvest of this sort of offspring. In ages
of ignorance they have been especially at home ; and the races
of men that have left no records behind them to tell almost that
they existed, have been most of all rife in deeds of darkness,
and those marvellous incidents which especially astonish the
spectator, and throw back the infant reason of man into those
shades and that obscurity from which it had so recently endea-
voured to escape.

I wind up for the present my literary labours with the produc-
tion of the booki Nor let any reader imagine that I here put
into his hands a mere work of idle recreation. It will be found
pregnant with deeper uses. The wildest extravagances of human

X PREFACE.

fancy, the most deplorable perversion of human faculties, and
the most horrible distortions of jurisprudence; may occasionally
aflford us a salutary lesson. I love in the foremost place to con-
template man in all his honours and in all the exaltation of wis-
dom and virtue ; but it will also be occasionally of service to us
to look into his obliquities, and distinctly to remark how great
and portentious have been his absurdities and his follies.

William Godwin.

CONTENTS.

PAGfi

Introduction ...... i

Ambitious Nature of Man .... 5

His Desire to Penetrate into Futurity . . .7

Divination ••.... 7

Augury ....... 7

Chiromancy ••.... 7

Physiognomy ...... 8

Interpretation of Dreams .... 8

Casting of Lots . . • . . • 9

Astrology ...... 9

Oracles . . . . . . .10

Delphi ...... 10

The Desire to Command and Control Future Events . 13
Commerce with the Invisible World . . 13

Sorcery and Enchantment . . . .13

Witchcraft . . . » . .15

Compacts with the Devil. . . . .16

Imps ....... 16

Talismans and Amulets « • . . .17

Necromancy . . . . . .17

Alchemy . , . . . . .18

Fairies *..... 20

kosicrucians . « ; . . » 22

Sylphs and Gnomes, Salamanders and Undines . 22

xii CONTENTS.

PAGE

Examples of Necromancy and WiTCttCRAti't from

THE Bible .....

. 24

The Magi, or Wise Men of the East

28

Egypt

. 29

Statue of Memxion ....

31

Temple of Jupiter Ammon: its Oracles

• 32

Chaldea and Babylon . . .

34

i^oroaster .....<

. 34

Greece ......

3S

Deities of Greece . . .

• 35

Demigods .....

38

Daedalus .....

* 39

The Argonauts . .

40

Medea ..... «

. 41

Circe ......

43

Orpheus . . . i

. 43

Amphion .....

. 46

Tiresias .....

« a6

Abaris .....

47

Pythagoras .

. 47

Epinienides • • . 4 ;

57

Empedocles . . * .

* 58

Aristeas . . . i i

60

Hermotimus ....

. 61

The Mother of Demaratus, King of Sparta

61

Oracles . • i i .

, 62

Invasion of Xerxes into Greece »

* 6$

Democritus .....

. 68

Socrates .....

. 69

Rome . . . .

» 72

Virgil

72

CONTENTS,

Rome— continued.

Polydorus • •

Dido • , , '

Romulus • ' •
Numa. • •

Tullus Hostilius •
Accius Navius •

Servius Tullius •
The Sorceress of Vii^l
Canidia • • • .

Ericktho - • - •
Sertorius • •

Casting out Devils •
Simon Magus • •

Elymas, the Sorcerer
Nero • • •

Vespasian • •

Apollonius of Tyana •
Apuleius ». •
Alexander the Paphlagonian

xiii
PAGE

72
73

74
74
75
75
76
77
78
81
89

91
92

93

94

95

96

100

lOI

Revolution producep in the History op Necro-
mancy and Witchcraft upon the Establishment

OF Christianity 103

Magical .Consultations. Respecting the Life of the
Emperor . • • • # • .104

History of Necromancy in the Bast . . 106
General Silence of the East Respecting Individual

Necromancers •'•'•• .111

Rocail • • • • •112

Hakem, otherwise Macanna . • • •113

CONTENTS,

History of Necromancy in the EAsr-^continued,
Arabian Nights' Entertainments . , . »

Persian Tales • • . . , . ^ •

Story of a Goule . • , , • •

Arabian Nights • • • • • •

Resemblance of the Tales of the East; and of Europe
Causes of Human Credulity , . i .

PAGE

114
117
121
123
123
124

Dark Ages of Europe
Merlin • .

St. Dunstan • •

Communicatio'In of Europe
Gerbert, Pope Silvester II.
Benedict the Ninth •
Gregory the Seventh
Duff, King of Scotland . .
Macbeth •
Virgil

Robert of Lincoln . .
Michael Scot •
The Dean of Badajoz
Miracle of the Tub of Watet
Institution of Friars
Albertus Magnus
Roger Bacon - .
Thomas Aquinas
Peter of Appno •
English Law of High Treason
Ziito • . • ,

Transmutation of l^etals
Artephius

AND THE Saracens

126
129
^33

138
138
140
141
144
146
150
151
153
153
IS4
IS5
156
158
160
i6x
162
164
167
167

CONTENTS, XV

FAQB

Communication of Europe and the Saracens- wf'
tinned,

Raymond LuUi t • • « • .168

Arnold of Villeneuve . , , .170

English Laws Respecting Transmutation , • i/q

Revival of Letters . , . . • . 171

Joan of Arc . , . • • .173

Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester • • 177

Richard in. . • • • • • X79

Sanguinary Proceedings against Witchcraft . 180
Savonarola • • • • • .188

Trithemius ...##• 191
Luther • • • • . • • 193

Cornelius Agrippa . . . . • 194

Faustus • • • . • . •199

Sabellicus • • . • . .216

Paracelsus • • . . . .217

Cardan ••.».. 219

Quacks^ who in cool Blood undertook to Overreach

Mankind • . • • • .220

Benvenuto Cellini • . • • ,221

Nostradamus . • . . . .225

Doctor Dee •••... 226
Earl of Derby • • . . • « 241

King James's Voyage to Norway , • . 242

John Flan •*..•• 245

King James's Demonology • • . • 246

* Statute, I James L • • • • .247

Forman and Others. • • • • 247

Latest Ideas of James on the Subject • • • 250

; Lancashire Witches . . • . 250

CONTENTS,

PAGE

Sanguinary Proceedings against Witchcraft--
continued.

Lady Davies ^ , i

Edward Fairfax

. 253
254

Doctor Lamb . . . . .

. 254

Urbain Grandier ....

255

Astrology . - .

William Lilly • . • ...

Matthew Hopkins

Cromwell . .

. 257

258

• 262

265

Dorothy Mateley

Witches Hanged by Sir Matthew Hale .

Witchcraft in Sweden .

.267

. 269

. 272

Witchcraft in New England

276

Conclusion • »

, 28Q

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

h^

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

THE improvements that have been effected in natural philo-
sophy have by degrees convinced the enlightened part of
mankind that the material universe is everywhere subject to laws,
fixed in their weight, measure, and duration, capable of the most
exact calculation, and which in no case admit of variation and
exception. Whatever is not thus to be accounted for is of mind,
and springs from the volition of some being, of which the ma*
terial form is subject to our senses, and the action of which is
in like manner regulated by the laws of matter. Beside this,
mind, as well as matter, is subject to fixed laws ; and thus every
phenomenon and occurrence around us is rendered a topic for
the speculations of sagacity and foresight. Sueh is the creed
which science has universally prescribed to the judicious and
reflecting among us.

It was otherwise in the infancy and less mature state of human
knowledge. The chain of causes and consequences was yet
unrecognized ; and events perpetually occurred, for which no
sagacity that was then in being was able to assign an original.
Hence men felt themselves habitually disposed to refer many of
the appearances with which they were conversant to the agency
of invisible intelligences ; sometimes under the influence of a
benignant disposition, sometimes of malice, and sometimes
perhaps from an inclination to make themselves sport of the
wonder and astonishment of ignorant mortals. Omens and
portents tpld these men of some piece of good or ill fortune

I

3 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

speedily to befal them. The flight of birds was watched by
them, as foretokening somewhat important. Thunder excited
in them a feeling of supernatural terror. Eclipses with fear of
change perplexed the nations. The phenomena of the heavens,
regular and irregular, were anxiously remarked from the same
principle. During the hours of darkness men were apt to see a
supernatural being in every bush ; and they could not cross a
receptacle for the dead, without expecting to encounter some
one of the departed uneasily wandering among graves, or com-
missioned to reveal somewhat momentous and deeply affecting
•o the survivors. Fairies danced in the moonlight glade ; and
something preternatural perpetually occurred to fill the living
with admiration and awe.

All this gradually reduced itself into a system. Mankind,
particularly in the dark and ignorant ages, were divided into
the strong and the weak ; the strong and weak of animal frame,
when corporeal strength more decidedly bore sway than in a
period of greater cultivation ; and the strong and weak in refer-
ence to intellect ; those who were bold, audacious, and enter-
prising in acquiring an ascendency over their fellow-men, and
those who truckled, submitted, and were acted upon, from an
innate consciousness of inferiority, and a superstitious looking
up to such as were of greater natural or acquired endowments
than themselves. The strong in intellect were eager to avail
themselves of their superiority, by means that escaped the pene-
tration of the multitude, and had recourse to various artifices to
effect their ends. Besides this, they became the dupes of their
own practices. They set out at first in their conception of things
from the level of the vulgar. They applied themselves diligently
to the unravelling of what was unknown ; wonder mingled with
their contemplation ; they abstracted their minds from things of
ordinary occurrence, and, as we may denominate it, of real life,
till at length they lost their true balance amidst the astonishment
they sought to produce in their inferiors. They felt a vocation
to things extraordinary ; and they willingly gave scope and line
without limit to that which engendered in themselves the most
gratifying sensations, at the same time that it answered the pur-
poses of their ambition.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 3

As these principles in the two parties— the more refined and
the vulgar — are universal, and derive their origin from the nature
of man, it has necessarily happened that this faith in extraordinary
events, and superstitious fear of what is supernatural, has diffused
itself through every climate of the world, in a certain stage of
human intellect, and while refinement had not yet got the better
of barbarism. The Celts of antiquity had their Druids, a branch
of whose special profession was the exercise of magic. The
Chaldeans and Egyptians had their wise men, their magicians,
and their sorcerers. The negroes have their foretellers of events,
their amulets, and their reporters and believers of miraculous
occurrences. A similar race of men was found by Columbus
and the other discoverers of the New World in America ; and
facts of a parallel nature are attested to us in the islands of the
South Seas. And, as phenomena of this sort were universal in
their nature, without distinction of climate, whether torrid or
frozen, and independently of the discordant manners and cus-
toms of different countries, so have they been very slow and
recent in their disappearing. Queen Elizabeth sent to consult
Dr. John Dee, the astrologer, respecting a lucky day for her
coronation ; King James the First employed much of his learned
leisure upon questions of witchcraft and demonology, in which
he fully believed ; and Sir Matthew Hale in the year 1664
caused two old women to be hanged upon a charge of unlawful
communion with infernal agents.

The history of mankind, therefore, will be very imperfect, and
our knowledge of the operations and eccentricities of the mind
lamentably deficient, unless we take into our view what has oc-
curred under this head. The supernatural appearances with
which our ancestors conceived themselves perpetually surrounded
must have had a strong tendency to cherish and keep alive the
powers of the imagination, and to penetrate those who witnessed
or expected such things with an extraordinary sensitiveness. As
the course of events appears to us at present, there is much,
though abstractedly within the compass of human sagacity to
foresee, which yet the actors on the scene do not foresee ; but
the blindness and perplexity of short-sighted mortals must have
been wonderfully increased, when ghosts and extraordinary ap-

1—2

4 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

pearances were conceived liable to cross the steps and confound
the projects of men .at every turn, and a malicious wizard or a
powerful enchanter might involve his unfortunate victim in a
chain of calamities, which no prudence could disarm, and no
virtue could deliver him from. They were the slaves of an un-
controllable destiny, and must therefore have been eminently
deficient in the perseverance and moral courage, which may
justly be required of us in a more enlightened age. And the
men (but these were few compared with the great majority of
mankind), who believed themselves gifted with supernatural en-
dowments, must have felt exempt and privileged from common
rules, somewhat in the same way as the persons whom fiction has
delighted to portray as endowed with immeasurable wealth, or
with the power of rendering themselves impassive or invisible.
But, whatever were their advantages or disadvantages, at any
rate it is good for us to call up in review things, which are now
passed away, but which once occupied so large a share of the
thoughts and attention of mankind, and in a great degree tended
to modify their characters and dictate their resolutions.

As has already been said, numbers of those who were endowed
with the highest powers of human intellect, such as, if they had
lived in these times, would have aspired to eminence in the exact
sciences, to the loftiest flights of imagination, or to the discovery
^of means by which the institutions of men in society might
be rendered more beneficial and faultless, at that time wasted the
midnight oil in endeavouring to trace the occult qualities and
virtues of things, to render invisible spirits subject to their com-
mand, and to effect those wonders, of which they deemed them-
selves to have a dim conception, but which more rational views
of nature have taught us to regard as beyond our power to effect.
These sublime wanderings of the mind are well entitled to our
labour to trace and investigate. The errors of man are worthy
to be recorded, not only as beacons to warn us from the shelves
where our ancestors have made shipwreck, but even as some-
thing honourable to our nature, to show how high a generous
ambition could soar, though in forbidden paths, and in things too
wonderful for us.

Nor only is this subject inexpressibly interesting, as setting

LIVES OF THE NECltOMANCERS, s

before us how the loftiest and most enterprising minds of ancient
days formerly busied themselves. It is also of the highest im-
portance to an ingenuous curiosity, inasmuch'as it vitally affected
the fortunes of so considerable a portion of the mass of man-
kind. The legislatures of remote ages bent all their severity at
different periods against what they deemed the unhallowed arts
of the sons and daughters of reprobation. Multitudes of human
creatures have been sacrificed in different ages and countries,
upon the accusation of having exercised arts of the most im-
moral and sacrilegious character. They were supposed to have
formed a contract with a mighty and invisible spirit, the great
enemy of man, and to have sold themselves, body and soul, to
everlasting perdition, for the sake of gratifying, for a short term
of years, their malignant passions against those who had been so
unfortunate as to give them cause of offence. If there were any
persons who imagined they had entered into such a contract,
however erroneous was their belief, they must of necessity have
been greatly depraved. And it was but natural that such as
believed in this crime, must have considered it as atrocious
beyond all others, and have regarded those who were supposed
guilty of it with inexpressible abhorrence. There are many in-
stances on record, where the persons accused of it, either from
the depth of their delusion, or, which is more probable,.harassed
by persecution, by the hatred of their fellow-creatures directed
against them, or by torture, actually confessed themselves guilty.
These instances are too numerous, not to constitute an important
chapter in the legislation of past ages. And, now that the illu-
sion has in a manner passed away from the face of the earth, we
are on that account the better qualified to investigate this error
in its causes and consequences, and to look back on the tempest
and hurricane from which we have escaped, with chastened feel-
ings, and a sounder estimate of its nature, its reign, and its
effects.

AMBITIOUS NATUI^E OP MAN,
Man is a creature of boundless ambition.
It is probably our natural wants that first awaken us from that
lethargy and indifference in which man may be supposed to be

6 LIVES OP TMM NtCROMANCEkS.

plunged previously to the impulse of any motive, or the acces-
sion of any uneasiness. One of our earliest wants may be con-
ceived to be hunger, or the desire of food.

From this simple beginning the history of man in all its com-
plex varieties may be regarded as proceeding,

Man in a state of society, more especially where there is an
inequality of condition and rank, is very often the creature of
leisure. He finds in himself, either from internal or external
impulse, a certain activity. He finds himself at one time en-
gaged in the accomplishment of his obvious and immediate
desires, and at another in a state in which these desires have
for the present been fulfilled, and he has no present occasion
to repeat those exertions which led to their fulfilment. This is
the period of contemplation. This is the state which most emi-
nently distinguishes us from the brutes. Here it is that the
history of man, in its exclusive sense, may be considered as
taking its beginning.

Here it is that he specially recognizes in himself the sense of
power. Power, in its simplest acceptation, may be exerted in
either of two ways : either in his procuring for himself an ample
field for more refined accommodations, or in the exercise of com-
pulsion and authority over other living creatures. In the pursuit
of either of these, and especially the first, he is led to the attain-
ment of skill and superior adroitness in the use of his faculties.

No sooner has man reached to this degree of improvement
than now, if not indeed earlier, he is induced to remark the
extreme limitedness of his faculties in respect to the future ; and
he is led, first earnestly to desire a clearer insight into the future,
and next a power of commanding those external causes upon
which the events of the future depend. The first of these de-
sires is the parent of divination, augury, chiromancy, astrology,
and the consultation of oracles ; and the second has been the
prolific source of enchantment, witchcraft, sorcery, magic, necro-
mancy, and alchemy, in its two branches, the unlimited pro-
longation of human life, and the art of converting less precious
metals into gold.

LIVES OP THE NECROMANCERS: f

HIS DESIRE TO PENETRATE INTO FUTURITY.
Nothing can suggest to us a more striking and stupendous
idea of the faculties of the human mind, than the consideration
of the various arts by which men have endeavoured to penetrate
into the future, and to command the events of the future, in ways
that in sobriety and truth are entirely out of our competeiice.
We spurn impatiently against the narrow limits which the con-
stitution of things has fixed to our aspirings, and endeavour by
a multiplicity of ways to accomplish that which it is totally
beyond the power of man to effect.

DIVINATION.

Divination has been principally employed in inspecting the
entrails of beasts offered for sacrifice, and from their appearance
drawing omens of the good or ill-success of the enterprises in
which we are about to engage.

What the divination by the cup was which Joseph practised, dt
pretended to practise, we do not perhaps exactly understand.
We all of us know somewhat of the predictions, to this day re-
sorted to by maid-servants and others, from the appearance of
the sediment to be found at the bottom of a tea-cup. Predictions
of a similar sort are formed from the unpremeditated way in
which we get out of bed in a morning, or put on our garments,
from the persons or things we shall encounter when wie first
leave our chamber or go forth in the air, or any of the indifferent
accidents of life.

AUGURY,

Augury has its foundation in observing the flight of birds, the
sounds they utter, their motions whether sluggish or animated,
and the avidity or otherwise with which they appear to take
their food. The college of augurs was one of the most solemn
institutions of ancient Rome.

CHIROMANCY.

Chiromancy, or the art of predicting the various fortunes of
the individual, from an inspection of the minuter variations o

8 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

the lines to be found in the palm of the human hand, has been
used perhaps at one time or other in all the nations of the
world.

PHYSIOGNOMY.

Physiognomy is not so properly a prediction of future events,
as an attempt to explain the present and inherent qualities of
a man. By unfolding his propensities, however, it virtually gave
the world to understand the sort of proceedings in which he was
most likely to engage. The story of Socrates and the physio-
gnomist is sufficiently known.. The physiognomist having in-
spected the countenance of the philosopher, pronounced that he
was given to intemperance, sensuality, and violent bursts of pas-
sion, all of which was so contrary to his character as universally
known, that his disciples derided the physiognomist as a vain-
glorious pretender. Socrates however presently put them to
silence, by declaring that he had had an original propensity to all
the vices imputed to him, and had only conquered the propensity
by dint of a severe and unremitted self-discipline.

INTERPRETA TION OF DREAMS.
Oneirocriticism, or the art of interpreting dreams, seems of
all the modes of prediction the most inseparable from the nature
of man. A considerable portion of every twenty-four hours of
our lives is spent in sleep ; and in sleep nothing is at least more
usual than for the mind to be occupied in a thousand imaginary
scenes, which for the time are as realities, and often excite the
passions of the mind of the sleeper in no ordinary degree.
Many of them are wild and rambling ; but many also have a
portentous sobriety. Many seem to have a strict connection
with the incidents of our actual lives ; and some appear as if
they came for the very purpose to warn us of danger, or prepare
us for coming events. It is therefore no wonder that these
occasionally fill our waking thoughts with a deep interest, and
impress upon us an anxiety of which we feel it difficult to rid
ourselves. According, in ages when men were more prone to
superstition than at present, they sometimes constituted a sub-
ject of earnest anxiety and inquisitiveness ; and we find among

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 9

the earliest exercises of the art of prediction, the interpretation
of dreams to have occupied a principal place, and to have been
as it were reduced into a science.

CASTING OF LOTS,

The casting of lots seems scarcely to come within the enume-
ration here given. It was intended as an appeal to Heaven upon
a question involved in uncertainty, with the idea that the
supreme Ruler of the skies, thus appealed to, would from his
omniscience supply the defect of human knowledge. Two
examples, among others sufficiently remarkable, occur in the
Bible. One of Achan, who secreted part of the spoil taken in
Jericho, which was consecrated to the service of God, and who,
being taken by lot, confessed, and was stoned to death.* The
other of Jonah, upon whom the lot fell in a mighty tempest, the
crew of the ship inquiring by this means what was the cause of
the calamity that had overtaken them, and Jonah being in con-
sequence cast into the sea.

ASTROLOGY,

Astrology was one of the modes most anciently and univer-
sally resorted to for discovering the fortunes of men and nations.
Astronomy and astrology went hand in hand, particularly among
the people of the East. The idea of fate was most especially
bound up in this branch of prophecy. If the fortune of a man
was intimately connected with the position of the heavenly
bodies, it became evident that little was left to the province of
his free will. The stars overruled him in all his determinations ;
and it was in vain for him to resist them. There was something
flattering to the human imagination in conceiving that the
planets and the orbs on high were concerned in the conduct we
should pursue, and the events that should befal us. Man
resigned himself to his fate with a solemn, yet a lofty feeling,
that the remotest portions of the universe were concerned in the
catastrophe that awaited him. Beside which, there was some-
thing peculiarly seducing in the apparently profound investiga-

X Joshua vii. 16, et seq*

lo LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

tion of the professors of astrology. They busied themselves
with the actual position of the heavenly bodies, their conjunc-
tions and oppositions ; and of consequence there was a great
apparatus of diagrams and calculation to which they were
prompted to apply themselves, and which addressed itself to the
eyes and imaginations of those who consulted them,

ORACLES.

But that which seems to have had the greatest vogue in times
of antiquity, relative to the prediction of future events, is what is
recorded of oracles. Finding the insatiable curiosity of man-
kind as to what was to happen hereafter, and the general desire
they felt to be guided in their conduct by an anticipation of
things to come, the priests pretty generally took advantage of
this passion, to increase their emoluments and offerings, and the
more effectually to inspire the rest of their species with venera-
tion and a willing submission to their authority. The oracle
was delivered in a temple, or some sacred place ; and in this
particular we plainly discover that mixture of nature and art, of
genuine enthusiasm and contriving craft, which is so frequently
exemplified in the character of man.

DELPHL

The oracle of Apollo at Delphi is the most remarkable ; and
respecting it we are furnished with the greatest body of par-
ticulars. The locality of this oracle is said to have been
occasioned by the following circumstance. A goat-herd fed his
flocks on the acclivity of mount Parnassus. As the animals
wandered here and there in pursuit of food, they happened to
approach a deep and long chasm which appeared in the rock.
From this chasm a vapour issued ; and the goats had no sooner
inhaled a portion of the vapour than they began to play and-
frisk about with singular agility. The goat-herd, observing this,
and curious to discover the cause, held his head over the chasm ;
when, in a short time, the fumes having ascended to his brain,
he threw himself into a variety of strange attitudes, and uttered

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. ii

words, which probably he did not understand himself, but which
were supposed to convey a prophetic meaning.

This phenomenon was taken advantage of, and a temple to
Apollo was erected on the spot. The credulous many believed
that here was obviously a centre and focus of divine inspiration.
On this mountain Apollo was said to have slain the serpent
Python. The apartment of the oracle was immediately over the
chasm from which the vapour issued, A priestess delivered the
responses, who was called Pythia, probably in commemoration
of the exploit which had been performed by Apollo. She sat
upon a tripod, or three-legged stool, perforated with holes over
the seat of the vapours. After a time, her figure enlarged itself,
her hair stood on end, her complexion and features became
altered, her heart panted and her bosom swelled, and her voice
grew more than human. In this condition she uttered a number
of wild and incoherent phrases, which were supposed to be
dictated by the God. The questions which were oifered by
those who came to consult the oracle were then proposed to her,
and her answers taken down by the priest, whose office was to
arrange and methodize them, and put them into hexameter
verse, after which they were delivered to the votaries. The
priestess could only be consulted on one day in every month.

Great ingenuity and contrivance were no doubt required to
uphold the credit of the oracle ; and no less boldness and self-
collectedness on the part of those by whom the machinery was
conducted. Like the conjurors of modern times, they took care
to be extensively informed as to all such matters respecting
which the oracle was likely to be consulted. Tbey listened
probably to the Pythia with a superstitious reverence for the
incoherent sentences she uttered. She, like them, spent her life
in being trained for the office to which she was devoted. All
that was rambling and inapplicable in her wild declamation they
consigned to oblivion. Whatever seemed to bear on the ques-
tion proposed they preserved. The persons by whom the
responses were digested into hexameter verse had of course a
commission attended with great discretionary power. They, as
Horace remarks on another occasion,* divided what it was
' De Arte Poetical v. 150.

12 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

judicious to say, from what it was prudent to omit, dwelt upon
one thing, and slurred over and accommodated another, just as
would best suit the purpose they had in hand. Beside this, for
the most part they clothed the apparent meaning of the oracle
in obscurity, and often devised sentences of ambiguous interpret-
tation, that might suit with opposite issues, whichever might
happen to fall out. This was perfectly consistent with a high
degree of enthusiasm on the part of the priest However con-
fident he might be in some things, he could not but of necessity
feel that his prognostics were surrounded with uncertainty.
Whatever decisions of the oracle were frustrated by the event,
and we know that there were many of this sort, were speedily for-
gotten ; while those which succeeded were conveyed from shore
to shore, and repeated by every echo. Nor is it surprising that
the transmitters of the sentences of the god should in time
arrive at an extraordinary degree of sagacity and skill. The
oracles accordingly reached to so high a degree of reputation,
that, as Cicero observes, no expedition for a long time was
undertaken, no colony sent out, and often no affair of any dis-
tinguished family or individual entered on, without the previously .
obtaining their judgment and sanction. Their authority in a
word was so high, that the first fathers of the Christian church
could no otherwise account for a reputation thus universally
received, than by supposing that the devils were permitted by
God Almighty to inform the oracles with a more than human
prescience, that all the world might be concluded in idolatry and
unbelief,* and the necessity of a Saviour be made more
apparent. The gullibility of man is one of the most prominent
features of our nature. Various periods and times, when whole
nations have as it were with one consent run into the roost in-
credible and the grossest absurdities, perpetually offer themselves
in the page of history ; and in the records of remote antiquity it
plainly appears that such delusions continued through successive
centuries.

' Romans xi. 32.

UVBS OF THB NECROMANCERS. 13

THE DESIRE TO COMMAND AND CONTROL FUTURE
EVENTS,

Next to the consideration of those measures by which men
have sought to dive into the secrets of future time, the question
presents itself of those more daring undertakings, the object of
which has been by some supernatural power to control the future,
and place it in subjection to the will of the unlicensed adven-
turer. Men have always, especially in races of ignorance, and
when they most felt their individual weakness, figured to them-
selves an invisible strength greater than their own ; and, in pro-
portion to their impatience, and the fervour of their desires, have
sought to enter into a league with those beings whose mightier
force might supply that in which their weakness failed.

COMMERCE WITH THE INVISIBLE WORLD.

It is an essentia] feature of different ages and countries to vary
exceedingly in the good or ill construction, the fame or dishonour,
which shall attend upon the same conduct or mode of behaviour.
In Egypt and throughout the East, especially in the early
periods of history, the supposed commerce with invisible powers
was openly professed, which, under other circumstances, and
during the reign of different prejudices, was afterwards carefully
concealed, and barbarously hunted out of the pale of allowed
and authorised practice. The Magi of old, who claimed a power
of producing miraculous appearances, and boasted a familiar
intercourse with the world of spirits, were regarded by their
countrymen with peculiar reverence, and considered as the first
and chiefest men in the state. For this mitigated view of such
dark and mysterious proceedings the ancients were in a great
degree indebted to their polytheism. The Romans are computed
to have acknowledged thirty thousand divinities, to all of whom
was rendered a legitimate homage ; and other countries in a
similar proportion.

SORCERY AND ENCHANTMENT.
In Asia, however, the gods were divided into two parties,
under Oromasdes, the principle of good, and Arimanius, the prin-

14 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

ciple of evil. These powers were in perpetual contention with
each other, sometimes the one, and sometimes the other gaining
the superiority. Arimanius and his legions were therefore
scarcely considered as entitled to the homage of mankind. Those
•who were actuated by benevolence, and who desired to draw
down blessings upon their fellow-creatures, addressed themselves
to the principle of good ; while such unhappy beings, with whom
spite and ill-will had the predominance, may be supposed often
to have invoked in preference the principle of evil. Hence seems
to have originated the idea of sorcery, or an appeal by incanta-
tions and wicked arts to the demons who delighted in mischief.

These beings rejoiced in the opportunity of inflicting calamity
and misery on mankind. But by what we read of them we might
be induced to suppose that they were in some way restrained
from gratifying their malignant intentions, and waited in eager
hope, till some mortal reprobate should call out their dormant
activity, and demand their aid.

Various enchantments were therefore employed by those un-
happy mortals whose special desire was to bring down calamity
and plagues upon the individuals or tribes of men against whom
their animosity was directed. Unlawful and detested words and
mysteries were called into action to conjure up demons who
should yield their powerful and tremendous assistance. Songs
of a wild and maniacal character were chaunted. Noisome
scents and the burning of all unhallowed and odious things were
resorted to. In later times books and formulas of a terrific
character were commonly employed, upon the reading or recital
of which the prodigies resorted to began to display themselves.
The heavens were darkened ; the thunder rolled ; and fierce and
blinding lightnings flashed from one comer of the heavens to
the other. The earth quaked and rocked from side to side. All
monstrous and deformed things showed themselves, " Gorgons,
and Hydras, and Chimeras dire,"enough to cause the stoutest heart
to quail. Lastly, devils, whose name was legion, and to whose
forms and distorted and menacing countenances superstition had
annexed the most frightful ideas, crowded in countless multitudes
upon the spectator, whose breath was flame, whose dances were
full of terror, and whose strength infinitely exceeded everything

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 15

human. Such were the appalling conceptions which ages of
bigotry and ignorance annexed to the notion of sorcery, and with
these they scared the unhappy beings over whom this notion had
usurped an ascendency into lunacy, and prepared them for the
perpetrating flagitious and unheard-of deeds.

The result of these horrible incantations was not less tremen-.
dous, than the preparations might have led us to expect. The
demons possessed all the powers of the air, and produced
tempests and shipwrecks at their pleasure. ** Castles toppled on
their warder's heads, and palaces and pyramids sloped their
summits to their foundations f forests and mountains were torn
from their roots, and cast into the sea. They inflamed the
passions of men, and caused them to commit the most unheard-<
of excesses. They laid their ban on those who enjoyed the most
prosperous health, condemned them to peak and pine, wasted
them into a melancholy atrophy, and finally consigned them to a
premature grave. They breathed a new and unblest life into
beings in whom existence had long been extinct, and by their
hateful and resistless power caused the sepulchres to give up
their dead.

WITCHCRAFT.

Next to sorcery we may recollect the case of witchcraft, which
occurs oftener, particularly in modern times, than any ^her
alleged mode of changing by supernatural means the future
course of events. The sorcerer, as we shall see hereafter, was
frequently a man of learning and intellectual abilities, sometimes
of comparative opulence and respectable situation in society^
But the witch or wizard was almost uniformly old, decrepid, andt
nearly or altogether in a state of penury. The functions, how^
ever,of the witch and the sorcerer were in a great degree the same.,
The earliest account of a witch, attended with any degree of
detail, is that of the witch of Endor in the Bible, who among
other things, professed the power of calling up the dead upon
occasion from the peace of the sepulchre. Witches also claimed
the faculty of raising storms, and in various ways disturbing the
course of nature. They appear in most cases to have been brought,
into action by the impulse of private ms^ice. They occasione<^

i6 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

mortality of greater or less extent in man and beast. They blighted
the opening prospect of a plentiful harvest. They covered the
heavens with clouds, and sent abroad withering and malignant
blasts. They undermined the health of those who were so fortu-
nate as to incur their animosity, and caused them to waste away
gradually with incurable disease. They were notorious two or
three centuries ago for the power of the " evil eye." The vulgar,
both great and small, dreaded their displeasure, and sought, by
small gifts, and fair speeches, but insincere, and the offspring of
terror only, to avert the pernicious consequences of their malice.
They were famed for fabricating small images of wax, to represent
the object of their persecution ; and, as these by gradual and often
studiously protracted degrees wasted before the fire, so the unfor-
tunate butts of their resentment perished with a lingering, but in-
evitable death.

COMPACTS WITH THE DEVIL,

The power of these witches as we find in their earliest records,
originated in their intercourse with " familiar spirits," invisible
beings who must be supposed to be enlisted in the armies of the
prince of darkness. We do not read in these ancient memorials
of any league of mutual benefit entered into between the merely
human party, and his or her supernatural assistant. But modern
times have amply supplied this defect. The witch or sorcerer
could not secure the assistance of the demon but by a sure and
faithful compact, by which the human party obtained the indus-
trious and vigilant service of his familiar for a certain term of
years, only on condition that, when the term was expired, the
demon of undoubted right was to obtain possession of the in-
dentured party, and to convey him irremissibly and for ever to
the regions of the damned. The contract was drawn out in
authentic form, signed by the sorcerer, and attested with his
blood, and was then carried away by the demon, to be produced
again at the appointed time.

IMPS.

These familiar spirits often assumed the form of animals, and
a black dog or cat was considered as a figure in which the atten-
dant devil was secretly hidden. These subordinate devils were

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 17

called Imps. Impure and carnal ideas were mingled with these
theories. The witches were said to have preternatural teats
from which their familiars sucked their blood. The devil also
engaged in sexual intercourse with the witch or wizard, being de-
nominated incubus, if his favourite were a woman, and succubus^
if a man. In short, every frightful and loathsome idea was care-
fully heaped up together, to render the unfortunate beings to
whom the crime of witchcraft was imputed the horror and exe-
cration of their species.

TALISMANS AND AMULETS.
As according to the doctrine of witchcraft, there were certain
compounds and matters prepared by rules of art, that proved
baleful and deadly to the persons against whom their activity
was directed, so there were also preservatives, talismans, amulets,
and charms, for the most part to be worn about the person,
which rendered him superior to injury, not only from the opera-
tions of witchcraft, but in some cases from the sword or any
other mortal weapon. As the poet says, he that had this,

Might trace huge forests and unhallowed heaths, —

Yea there, where very desolation dwells,

By grots and caverns shagged with horrid shades,

nay, in the midst of every tremendous assailant, " might pass oil
with unblenched majesty,'* uninjured and invulnerable.

NECROiMANCY.
Last of all we may speak of necromancy, which has some*
thing in it that so strongly takes hold of the imagination, that
though it is one only of the various modes which have been ehu*-
merated for the exercise of magical power, we have selected it
to give a title to the present volume.

There is something sacred to common apprehension in the
repose of the dead. They seem placed beyond our power to dis-
turb. " There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom
in the grave."

After life's fitful fever they sleep well :
Nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch them further.

Their remains moulder in the earth. Neither form nor feature

2

18 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

is long continued to them. We shrink from their touch, and
their sight. To violate the sepulchre therefore for the purpose of
imholy spells and operations, as we read of in the annals of
Vitchcraft, cannot fail to be exceedingly shocking. To call up
the spirits of the departed, after they have fulfilled the task of
life, and are consigned to their final sleep, is sacrilegious. Well
may they exclaim, like the ghost of Samuel in the sacred story,
" Why hast thou disquieted me ?"

There is a further circumstance in the case, which causes us
additionally to revolt from the very idea of necromancy, strictly
so called. Man is a mortal, or an immortal being. His frame
either wholly " returns to the earth as it wjis, or his spirit,'' the
thinking principle within him, " to God who gave it." The latter
is the prevailing sentiment of mankind in modern times. Man is
placed upon earth in a state of probation, to be dealt with here-
after according to the deeds done in the flesh. " Some shdll go
away into everlasting punishment ; and others into life feternal."
In this case there is something blasphemous in the idea of inter-
meddling with the state of the dead. We must leave them in
the hands of God. Even on the idea of an interval, the " sleep
of the soul" from death to the general resurrection, which is
the creed of no contemptible sect of Christians, it is surely a
terrific notion that we should disturb the pause, which upon that
hypothesis, the laws of nature have assigned to the departed
soul, and come to awake, or to " torment him before the time."

ALCHEMY,
To make our catalogue of supernatural doings, and the lawless
imaginations of man, the more complete, it may be further
necessary to refer to the craft, so eagerly cultivated in successive
ages of the world, of converting the Inferior metals into gold, to
which was usually joined the elixir vita or universal medicine,
having the quality of renewing the youth of man, and causing
him to live for ever. The first authentic record on this subject
is an edict of Diocletian about three hundred years after Christ,
ordering a diligent search to be made in Egypt for all the
ancient books which treated of the art of making gold and silver,
that they might without distinction be consigned to the flames.

LIVES OP TUB NECROMANCERS, 19

This edict, however, necessarily presumfes a certain antiquity to
the pursuit ; and fabulous history has recorded Solomon, Py-
thagoras and Hermes among its distinguished votaries. From
this period the study seems to have slept, till it was revived
among the Arabians after a lapse of five or six hundred years.

It is well known, however, how eagerly it was cultivated in
various countries of the world for many centuries after it was
divulged by Geber. Meii of the most wonderful talents devoted
their lives to the investigation ; and in multipilied instances the
discovery was said to have been completed. Vast sums of
money were consumed in the fruitless endeavour ; and in a later
period it seems to have furnished an excellent handle to vain
and specious projectors, to extort money from those more amply
provided with the goods of fortune than theniselves.

The art no doubt iS in itself sufficiently mystical, having been
pursued by multitudes, who seemed to themselves ever on the
eve of consummation, but as constantly baffled when to their own
apprehension most on the verge of success. The discovery in-
deed appears lipon the face of it to be df the most delicate
nature, as the benefit must wholly depend updn its being reserved
to one or a very few, the object being unbounded wealth, which
is nothing unless confined. If the power of creating gold i^
diffused, wealth by such diffusion becomes poverty, and ever}'^-
thing after a short time would but return to what it had been.
Add to which, that the nature of discovery has ordinarily been,
that, when once the clue has been found, it reveals itself to
several about the same period of time.

The art, as we have said, is in its own nature sufficiently
mystical, depending on nice combinations and proportions of
ingredients, and upon the addition of each ingredient being
made exactly in the critical moment, and in the precise degree
of heat, indicated by the colour of the vapour arising from the
crucible or retort. This was watched by the operator with inex-
haustible patience ; and it was often found or supposed, that the
minutest error in this respect caused the most promising ap-
' pearances to fail of the expected success. This circumstance
no doubt occasionally gave an opportunity to an artful impostor
to account for his miscarriage, and thus to prevail upon his

so LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

credulous dupe to enable him to begin his tedious experiment
again.

But, beside this, it appears that those whose object was the
transmutation of metals, very frequently joined to this pursuit the
study of astrology, and even the practice of sorcery. So much
delicacy and nicety were supposed to be required in the process
for the transmutation of metals, that it could not hope to succeed
but under a favourable conjunction of the planets ; and the most
flourishing pretenders to the art boasted that they had also a
familiar intercourse with certain spirits of supernatural power,
which assisted them in their undertakings, and enabled them to
penetrate into things undiscoverable to mere human sagacity,
and to predict future events.

FAIRIES,

Another mode in which the wild and erratic imagination
of our ancestors manifested itself, was in the creation of a world
of visionary being of a less terrific character, but which did not
fail to annoy their thoughts, and perplex their determinations,
known by the name of Fairies.

There are few things more worthy of contemplation, and that
at the same time tend to place the dispositions of our ancestors
in a more amiable point of view, than the creation of this airy
and fantastic race. * They were so diminutive as almost to elude
the organs of human sight They were at large, even though
confined to the smallest dimensions. They " could be bounded
in a nutshell, and count themselves kings of infinite space."

Their midnight revels, by a forest-side

Or fountain, the belated peasant saw,

Or dreamed he saw, while overhead the moon

Sat arbi tress, and nearer to the earth

Wheeled her pale course— they, on their mirth and dance

Intent, with jocund music charmed his ear j

At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds.

Small circles marked the grass in solitary places, the trace of
their little feet, which, though narrow, were ample enough to
afford every accommodation to their pastime.
The fairy tribes appear to have been everywhere distinguished

LIVES OF THR NECROMANCERS. 21

for their patronage of truth, simplicity, and industry, and their
abhorrence of sensuality and prevarication. They left little re-
wards in sepret, as tokens of their approbation of the virtues they
loved, and by their supernatural power afforded a supplement to
' pure and excellent intentions, when the corporeal powers of the
virtuous sank under the pressure of human infirmity. "Where
they conceived displeasure, the punishments they inflicted were
for the most part such as served moderately to vex and harass
the offending party, rather than to inflict upon him permanent
and irremediable evils,

Their airy tongues would syllable men's names
On sands, and shores, ^nd desert wildernesses.

They were supposed to guide the wandering lights, that in the
obscurity of the night beguiled the weary traveller " through
bog, through bush, through brake, through briar." But their
power of evil only extended, or was only employed, to vex those
who by a certain obliquity of conduct gave occasion for their
reproofs. They besides pinched and otherwise tormented the
objects of their displeasure ; and, though the mischief they exe-
cuted were not of the most vital kind, yet, coming from a super-
natural enemy, and being inflicted by invisible hands, they could
not fail greatly to disturb and disorder thosef who suffered from
them.

There is at first sight a great inconsistency in the representa-
tions of these imaginary people. For the most part they are
described to us as of a stature and appearance almost too slight
to be marked by our grosser human organs. At other times,
however, and especially in the extremely popular tales digested
by M. Perrault, they show themselves in indiscriminate assem-
blies, brought together for some solemn festivity or otherwise,
and join the human frequenters of the scene, without occasion-
ing inquiry or surprise. They are particularly concerned in the
business of summarily and without appeal bestowing miraculous
gifts, sometimes as a mark of special friendship and favour, and
sometimes with a malicious and hostile intention.— But we are
to consider that spirits

28 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

Can every form assume, so soft

And uncompounded is their essence pure :

Not tied or manacled with joint or limb,

Like cumbrous flesh ; but, in what shape they choose,

Dilated or condensed, bright or obscure,

Can execute their airy purposes,

And works of love or enmity fulfil.

And then again, as their bounties were shadowy, so were they
specially apt to disappear in a moment, the most splendid palaces
and magnificent exhibitions vanishing away, and leaving their
disconcerted dupe with his robes converted into the poorest rags,
and, instead of glittering state, finding himself suddenly in the
midst of desolation, and removed no man knew whither.

One of the mischiefs that were most frequently imputed to
theni, was the changing the beautiful child of some dotjng
parents, for a babe marked with ugliness and deformity. But
this idea seems fraught with inconsistency. The natural stature
of the fairy is of the smallest dimensions ; and, though they
could occasionally dilate their figure so as to imitate humanity,
yet it is to be presumed that this was only for a special purpose,
and, that purpose obtained, that they shrank again habitually
into their characteristic littleness. The change therefore can
only be supposed to have been of one human child for another.

ROSICRUCIANS.

Nothing very distinct has been ascertained respecting a sect,
calling itself Rosicrucians. It is said to have originated in the
East from one of the crusaders in the fourteenth century ; but it
attracted at least no public notice till the beginning of the
seventeenth century. Its adherents appear to have imbibed their
notions frpm the Arabians, and claimed the possession of the
philosopher's stone, the art of transmuting metals, and the
elixir vitce,

SYLPHS AND GNOMES, SALAMANDERS AND UNDINES,

But that for which they principally excited public attention,
was their creed respecting certain dementary beings, which to
grosser eyes are invisible, but were familiarly known tp the initir

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 23

^ted. To be admitted to their acquaintance it was previously
necessary that the organs of human sight should be purged by
the universal medicine, and that certain glass globes should be
chemically prepared with one or other of the four elements, and
for one month exposed to the beams of the sun. These pre-
liminary steps being taken, the initiated immediately had a sight
of innumerable beings of a luminous substance, but of thin an4
evanescent structure, that people the elements on all sides of us.
Those who inhabited the air, were called Sylphs ; and those who
dwelt in the earth bore the name of Gnomes ; such as peopled
the fire were Salamanders ; and those who made their home in
the waters were Undines. Each class appears to have had an
extensive power in the elements to which they belonged. They
could raise tempests in the air and storms at sea, shake the
earth, and alarm the inhabitants of the globe with the sight 01
devouring flames. These appear, however, to have been more
formidable in appearance than in reality. And the whole race
was subordinate to man, and particularly subject to the initiated.
The gnomes, inhabitants of the earth and the mines, liberally sup-
plied to the human beings with whom they conversed, the'hidden
treasures over which they presided. The four classes were
some of them male, and some female ; but the female sex seems
to have preponderated in all.

These elementary beings, we are told, were by their constitu-
tion more long-lived tfian man, but with this essential disad-
vantage that at death they wholly ceased to exist. In the mean
time they were inspired with an earnest desire for immortality ;
and there was one way left for them, by which this desire might
be gratified. If they were so happy as to awaken in any of the
initiated a passion, the end of which was marriage, then the
sylph who became the bride of a virtuous man, followed his
nature, and became immortal ; while on the other hand, if she
united herself to an immortal being and a profligate, the husband
followed the law of the wife, and was rendered entirely mortal
The initiated, however, were required, as a condiiion to their
being admitted into the secrets of the order, to engage them-r
selves in a vow of perpetual chastity ^s to women. And they
were abundantly regarded by the prqbal^ility of being united \q

94 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

a sylph, a gnome, a salamander, or an undine, any one of whom
was inexpressibly more enchanting than the most beautiful
woman, in addition to which her charms were in a manner per-
petual while a wife of our own nature is in a short time destined
to wrinkles, and all the other disadvantages of old age. The
Initiated of course enjoyed a beatitude infinitely greater than that
which falls to the lot of ordinary mortals, being conscious of a
perpetual commerce with these wonderful beings from whose
society the vulgar are debarred, and having such associates un-
intermittedly anxious to perform their behests, and anticipate
their desires.^

We should have taken but an imperfect survey of the lawless
extravagances of human imagination, if we had not included a
survey of this sect There is something particularly soothing to
the fancy of an erratic mind, in the conception of being con-
versant with a race of beings the very existence of which is un»
perceived by ordinary mortals, and thus entering into an
infinitely numerous and variegated society, even when we are
apparently swallowed up in .entire solitude.

' The Rosicrucians are further entitled to our special notice, as
their tenets have had the good fortune to furnish Pope with the
beautiful machinery with which he has adorned the Rape of the
Lock. There is also, of much later date, a wild and poetical
fiction for which we are indebted to the same source, called
Undine, from the pen of Lamotte Fouquet.

EXAMPLES OF NECROMANCY AND WITCHCRAFT FROM
THE BIBLE.

The oldest and most authentic record from which we can
derive our ideas on the subject of necromancy and witchcraft,
unquestionably is the Bible. The Egyptians and Chaldeans
were early distinguished for their supposed proficiency in magic,
in the production of supernatural phenomena, and in penetrating
into the secrets of future time. The first appearance of men
thus extraordinarily gifted, or advancing pretensions of this sort,
recorded in Scripture, is on occasion of Pharoah's dream of the
seven years of plenty, and seven years of famine. At that period
' Coi»t« ^? G?^b^li§,

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 25

the king " sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt and all
the wise men ; but they could not interpret the dream," ^ which
Joseph afterwards expounded.

Their second appearance was upon a most memorable occasion,
when Moses and Aaron, armed with miraculous powers, came
to a subsequent king of Egypt, to demand from him that their
countrymen might be permitted to depart to another tract of the
world. They produced a miracle as the evidence of their divine
mission : and the king, who was also named Pharoah, " called
before him the wise men and the sorcerers of Egypt, who with
their enchantments did in like manner'' as Moses had done;
till, after some experiments in which they were apparently suc-
cessful, they at length were compelled to allow themselves over-
come, and fairly to confess to their master, " This is the fmger
of God r^

The spirit of the Jewish history loudly affirms, that the
Creator of heaven and earth had adopted this nation for his
chosen people, and therefore demanded their exclusive homage,
and that they should acknowledge no other God. It is on this
principle that it is made one of his early commands to them,
" Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."3 And elsewhere the
meaning of this prohibition is more fully explained : " There
shall not be found among you any one that useth divination, or
an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer,
or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer :4
these shall surely be put to death ; they shall stone them with
stones."s

The character of an enchanter is elsewhere more fully illus-
trated in the case of Balaam, the soothsayer, who was sent for
by Balak, the king of Moab, that he might " curse the people of
Israel. The messengers of the king came to Balaam with the
rewards of divination in their hand ;" ^ but the soothsayer was
restrained from his purpose by the God of the Jews, and, where
he came to curse, was compelled to bless. He therefore " did

? Genesis, xli, 3, 25, &c. 2 Exodus, vii. 11 ; viii. 19.

^Exodus, xxii. 18. 4 Deuteronomy, xviii. 10, 11.

5 Leviticus, xx. 27. ^ Numbers, xxii. 5—7.

96 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

not go, as at other times, to seek for enchantments,'' ^ but took
up his discourse, and began, saying, '* Surely there is no enchant-
ment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against
Israel !"«

Another example of necromantic power or pretension is to be
found in the story of Saul and the witch of Endor. Saul, the
first king of the Jews, being rejected by God, and obtaining " no
answer to hjs inquiries, either by dreams or by prophets, said to
his servants, seek me a woman that has a familiar spirit. And
his servants said, Lo, there is a woman that has a familiar spirit
at Endor." Saul accordingly had recourse to her. But, pre-
viously to this time, in conformity to the law of God, he " had
cut off those that had famihar spirits, and the wizards out of the
land ;" and the woman therefore was terrified at his present
application. Saul re-assured her ; and in consequence the
woman consented to call up the person he should name. Saul
demanded of her to bring up the ghost of Samuel. The ghost,
whether by her enchantments or through divine interposition we
are not told, appeared, and prophesied to Saul, that he and his
son should fall in battle on the succeeding day,3 which accord-
ingly came to pass.

Manasseh, a subsequent king in Jerusalem, " observed times,
and used enchantments, and dealt with familiar spirits and
wizards, and sq provoked God to anger." 4

It appears plainly from the same authority, that there were
good spirits and evil spirits. " The Lord said, Who shall per^
suade Ahab, that he may go up and fall before Ramoth Gilead .?
And there came a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said, I
will persuade him : I will go forth, and be a lying spirit in the
mouth of all his prophets. And the Lord said. Thou shalt per-
suade him." 5

In like manner, we are told, " Satan stood up against Israel
and provoked David to number the people ; and God was dis-
pleased with the thing, and smote Israel, so that there fell of the
people seventy thousand nien."^

» Numbers, xxiv. 1. ' * Numbers, xxiii. 23.

3l Sam.xxviii. 6, etseq, ^II Kings, xxi. 6.

5 1 Kin^s, xxii, 20, et se^. * I Chron. xxi. i, 7, 14.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 27

Satan also, in the book of Job, presented himself before the
Lord among the Sons of God, and asked and obtained leave to
try the faithfulness of Job by " putting forth his hand," and
despoiling the patriarch of " all that he had."

Taking these things into consideration, there can be no
reasonable doubt, though the devil and Satt^n are not mentioned
in the story, that the serpent who in so crafty a way beguiled
Eve, was in reality no other than the malevolent enemy of man-
kind under that disguise.

We are in the same manner informed of the oracles of the
false gods ; and an example occurs of a king of Samaria, who
fell sick, and who " sent messengers, and said to them, Go, and
enquire of Baalzebub, the God of Ekron, whether I shall recover
of this disease." At which proceeding the God of the Jews was
displeased, and sent Elijah to the messengers to say, *^ Is it be-
cause there is not a God in Israel, that you go to enquire of BaaU
zebub, the God of Ekron ?" Because the king has done this, he
shall not recover ; he shall surely die.'

The appearance of the Wise Men of the East again occurs in
considerable detail in the Prophecy of Daniel, though they are
only brought forward there, as discoverers of hidden things,
and interpreters of dreams. Twjce, on occasion of dreams that
troubled him, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, '^ commanded
to be called to him the magicians, and the astrologers, and the
sorcerers, and the Chaldeans " of his kingdom, and each time
with similar success. They confessed their incapacity; and
Daniel, the Prophet of the Jews, expounded to the king that in
which they had failed. Nebuchadnezzar in consequence pro-
moted Daniel to be master of the magicians. A similar scene
occurred in the court of Belshazzar, the son qf Nebuchadnezzar,
in the case of the handwriting on the wall.

It is probable that the Jews considered the gods of the
nations around them as so many of the fallen angels, or spirits
of hell, since, among other argunients, the coincidence of the
name of Beelzpbub, the prince of devils,* with Baalzebub, the
God of Ekron, could scarcely have fallen out by chance.

t II Kings, L 2-— 4. ^ Matthew, xii. 24.

28 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

It seemed necessary to enter into these particulars, as they
oceur in the oldest and most authentic records from which we
can derive our ideas on the subject of necromancy, witchcraft,
and the claims that were set up in ancient times to the exercise
of magical power. Among these examples there is only one,
that of the contention for superiority between Moses and the
Wise Men of Egypt, in which we are presented with their preten-
sions to a visible exhibition of supernatural effects.

THE MAGI, OR WISE MEN OF THE EASt

The Magi, or Wise Men of the East, extended their ramifica^
tions over Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, India, and probably, though
with a different name, over China, and indeed the whole known
world. Their profession was of a mysterious nature. They
laid claim to a familiar intercourse with the gods. They placed
themselves as mediators between heaven and earth, assumed the
prerogative of revealing the will of beings of a nature superior to
man, and pretended to show wonders and prodigies that sur-
passed any power which was merely human.

To understand this, we must bear in mind the state of know-
ledge in ancient times, where for the most part the cultivation
of the mind, and an acquaintance with either science or art, were
confined to a very small part of the population. In each of the
nations we have mentioned, there was a particular caste or tribe
of men, who, by the prerogative of their birth, were entitled to
the advantages of science and a superior education, while the
rest of their countrymen were destined to subsist by manual
labour. This of necessity gave birth in the privileged few to an
overweening sense of their own importance. They scarcely
regarded the rest of their countrymen as beings of the same
species with themselves ; and, finding a strong line of distinction
cutting them off from the herd, they had recourse to every
practicable method for making that distinction still stronger.
Wonder is one of the most obvious means of generating defer-
ence ; and, by keeping to themselves the grounds and process
of their skill, and presenting the results only, they were sure to
excite the admiration and reverence of their contemporaries.
This mode of proceeding further produced a reaction upon

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 29

themselves. That which supplied and promised to supply to
them so large a harvest of honour and fame, unavoidably became
precious in their eyes. They pursued their discoveries with
avidity^ because few had access to their opportunities in that
respect, and because, the profounder were their researches, the
more sure they were of being looked up to by the public as
having that in them which was sacred and inviolable. They
spent their days and nights in these investigations. They shrank
from no privation and labour. At the same time that in these
labours they had at all times an eye to their darling object, an
ascendency over the minds of their countrymen at large, and
the extorting from them a blind and implicit deference to their
oracular decrees. They, however, loved their pursuits for the
pursuits themselves. They felt their abstraction and their unli-
mited nature, and on that account contemplated them with
admiration. They valued them (fol: such is the indestructible
character of the humaii mind) for the pains they had bestowed
on them. The sweat of their brow greAv into a part as it were
of the intrinsic merit of the articles ; and that which had with so
much pains been attained by them, they could not but regard as
of inestimable worth.

EGYPT,

The Egyptians took the lead in early antiquity, with respect
to civilisation and the stupendous productions of human labour
and art, of all other known nations of the world. The pyramids
standby themselves as a monument of the industry of mankind.
Thebes, with her hundred gates, at each of which we are told
she could send out at once two hundred chariots and ten thou-
sand warriors completely accoutred, was one of the noblest
cities on record. The whole country of Lower Egypt was inter-
sected with canals, giving a beneficent direction to the periodical
inundations of the Nile ; and the artificial lake Moeris was dug
of a vast extent, that it might draw off the occasional excesses
of the overflowings of the river. The Egyptians had an extra-
ordinary custom of preserving their dead, so that the country
was peopled almost as numerously with mummies prepared by
extreme assiduity and skill, as with the living.

30 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

And, in proportion to their edifices and labours of this durable
sort, was their unWearied application to all the learning that was
then known. Geometry is said to have owed its existence tothfe
necessity under which they were placed of every roan recognizing
his own property in land, as soon as the overflowings of the Nile
had ceased. They were not less assiduous in their application
to astronomy. The hieroglyphics of Egypt are of universal
notoriety. Their mythology was of the most complicated nature.
Their gods weire infinitely varied in their kind ; and the modes of
their worship not less endlessly diversified. All these particulars
still contributed to the abstraction of their studies, and the lofti-
ness of their pretensions to knowledge. They perpetually con-
versed with the invisible world, and laid claim to the faculty of
fevealing things hidden, of foretelling future events, and display-
ing wonders that exceeded human power to produce.

A striking illustration of the state of Egypt in that respect in
early times, occurs incidentally in the history of Joseph in the
Bible. Jacob had twelve sons, among whom his partiality for
Joseph was So notorious, that his brethren out of envy sold him
as a slave to the wandering Midianites. Thus it ti^as his fortune
to be placed in Egypt, where in the process of events he became
the second man in the country, and chief minister of the king.
A severe famine having visited these climates, Jacob sent his
sons into Egypt to buy corn, where only it was to be found. As
soon as Joseph saw them he knew them, though they knew not
him in his exalted situation ; and he set himself to devise expe-
dients to settle them permanently in the country in which he
ruled. Among the rest he caused a precious cup from his stores
to be privily conveyed into the corn-sack of Benjamin, his only
brother by the same mother. The brothers were no sooner
departed, than Joseph sent in pursuit of them ; and the messen-
gers accosted them with the words, "Is not this the cup in which
my lord drinketh, and whereby also he divineth ? Ye have done
evil in taking it away."* They brought the strangers again into
the presence of Joseph, who addressed them with severity,
saying, ** What is this deed that ye have done ? Wot ye not that
such a man as I could certainly divine ?"*

* Genesis, xliv. 5. ° Genesis, xliv. 15.

LIVAS OF THE NECROMANCERS. 3*

From this story it plainly appears that the art of divination
was extensively exercised in Egypt, that the practice was held
in honour, and that such was the state of the country, that it was
to be presumed as a thing of course, that a man of the high
rank and distinction of Joseph should professedly be an adept
in it.

In the great contention for supernatural power between Moses
and the magicians of Egypt, it is plain that they came forward
with confidence, and did not shrink from the debate. Moses'
rod was turned into a serpent ; so were their rods : Moses
changed the waters of Egypt into blood ; and the magicians did
the like with their enchantments : Moses caused frogs to come
lip, and cover the land of Egypt ; and the magicians also brought
frogs upon the country. Without its being in any way necessary
to inquire how they effected these wdnders, it is evident from
the whole train of the narrative, that they must have been much
in the practice of astonishing their countrymen with their feats
in such a kindj and, whether it t<rere delusion, or to whatever
dlse we may attribute their success, that they were universally
looked up to for the extraordinariness of their performances.

While we are on this subject of illustrations from the Bible, it
may be worth while to revert more particularly to the story of
Balaam. Balak, the king of Moab, sent for Balaam, that he
might come and curse the invaders of his country ; ^nd in the
sequel we are told, when the prophet changed his curses into a
blessing, that he did not " go forth, as at other times, to seek for
enchantments." It is plain, therefore, that Balak did not rely
singly upon the eloquence and fervour of Balaam to pour out
vituperations upon the people of Israel, but that it was expected
that the prophet should use incantations and certain mystical
rites, upon which the efficacy of his foretelling disaster to the
enemy principally depended.

5 TA TUB OF MEMNON

The Magi of Egypt looked round in every quarter for
phenomena that might produce astonishment among their
countrymen, and induce them to believe that they dwelt in a
land which overflowed with the testimonies and presence of a

32 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

divine power. Among others the statue of Memnon, erected
over his tomb near Thebes, is recorded by many authors.
Memnon is said to have been the son of Aurora, the Goddess of
the morning*; and his statue is related to have had the peculiar
faculty of uttering a melodious sound every morning when
touched by the first beams of day, as if to salute his mother ;
and every night at sunset to have imparted another sound, low
and mournful, as lamenting the departure of the day. This
prodigy is spoken of by Tacitus, Strabo, Juvenal and Philostra-
tus. The statue uttered these sounds, while perfect ; and, when
it was mutilated by human violence, or by a convulsion of
nature, it still retained the property with which it had been
originally endowed. Modern travellers, for the same
phenomenon has still been observed, have asserted that it does
hot owe its existence to any prodigy, but to a property of the
granite, of which the statue or its pedestal is formed, which,
being hollow, is found in various parts of the world to exhibit
this quality. It has therefore been suggested, that the priests,
having ascertained its peculiarity, expressly formed the statue
of that material, for the purpose of impressing on it a super-
natural character, and thus being enabled to extend their
influence with a credulous people.^

TEMPLE OF JUPITER AMMON : ITS ORACLES.
Another of what may be considered as the wonders of Egypt,
is the temple of Jupiter Ammon in the midst of the Great Desert
This temple was situated at a distance of no less than twelve
days* journey from Memphis, the capital of the Lower Egypt.
The principal part of this space consisted of one immense tract
of moving sand, so hot as to be intolerable to the sole of the foot,
while the air was pregnant with fire, so that it was almost im-
possible to breathe in it. Not a drop of water, not a tree, not a
blade of grass, was to be found through this vast surface. It
was here that Cambyses, engaged in an impious expedition to
demolish the temple, is said to have lost an army of fifty
thousand men buried in the sands. When you arrived, however,
you were presented with a wood of great circumference, the
' Brewster on Natural Magic^ Letter IX. .

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 33

foliage of which was so thick that the beams of the sun could not
pierce it. The atmosphere of the place was of a delicious
temperature ; the scene was everywhere interspersed with foun-
tains ; and all the fruits of the earth were found in the
highest perfection. In the midst was the temple and oracle of
the god, who was worshipped in the likeness of a ram. The
Egyptian priests chose this site as furnishing a test of the zeal
of their votaries ; the journey being like the pilgrimage to
Jerusalem or Mecca, if not from so great a distance, yet
attended in many respects with perils more formidable. It was
not safe to attempt the passage but with moderate numbers, and
those expressly equipped for expedition.

Bacchus is said to have visited this spot in his great expedi-
tion to the East, when Jupiter appeared to him in the form of a
ram, having struck his foot upon the soil, and for the first time
occasioned that supply of water, with which the place was ever
after plentifully supplied, Alexander the Great in a subsequent
age undertook the same journey with his army, that he might
c ause himself to be acknowledged for the son of the god, under
which character he was in all due form recognised. The priests
no doubt had heard of the successful battles of the Granicusand
of Issus, of the capture of Tyre after a seven months' siege, and
of the march of the great conqueror in Egypt, where he carried
everything before him.

Here we are presented with a striking specimen of the mode
and spirit in which the oracles of old were accustomed to be
conducted. It may be said that the priests were corrupted by
the rich presents which Alexander bestowed on them with a
liberal hand. But this was not the prime impulse in the busi-
ness. They were astonished at the daring with which Alexander
with a comparative handful of men set out from Greece, having
meditated the overthrow of the great Persian empire. They
were astonished with his perpetual success, and his victorious
progress from the Hellespont to Mount Taurus, from Mount
Taurus to Pelusium, and from Pelusium quite across the ancient
kingdom of Egypt to the Palus Mareotis. Accustomed to the
practice of adulation, and to the belief that mortal power and
true intellectual greatness were the same, they with a genuine

3

34 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

enthusiastic fervour regarded Alexander as the son of their God»
and acknowledged him as such. Nothing can be more
memorable than the way in which belief and unbelief hold a
divided empire over the human mind, our passions hurrying us
into belief, at the same time that our intervals of sobriety suggest
to us that it is all pure imposition.

CHALDEA AND BABYLON.
The history of the Babylonish monarchy not having been
handed down to us, except incidentally as it is touched upon by
the historians of other countries, we know little of those anec-
dotes respecting it which are best calculated to illustrate the
habits and manners of a people. We know that they in
probability preceded all other nations in the accuracy of their
observations on the phenomena of the heavenly bodies. We
know that the Magi were highly respected among them as an
order in the state ; and that, when questions occurred exciting
great alarm in the rulers, " the magicians, the astrologers, the
sorcerers, and the Chaldeans,'^ were called together, to see
whether by their arts they could throw light upon questions so
mysterious and perplexing, and we find sufficient reason, both
from analogy, and from the very circumstance that sorcerers are
specifically named among the classes of which their wise men
consisted, to believe that the Babylonian Magi advanced no
dubious pretensions to the exercise of magical power,

ZOROASTER,

Among the Chaldeans the most famous name is that of
Zoroaster, who is held to have been the author of their religion,
their civil policy, their sciences, and their magic. He taught the
doctrine of two great principles, the one the author of good, the
other of evil. He prohibited the use of images in the cere-
monies of religion, and pronounced that nothing deserved
homage but fire, and the sun, the centre and the source of fire,
and these perhaps to be venerated not for themselves, but as
emblematical of the principle of all good things. He taught
astronomy and astrology. We may with sufficient probability
infer his doctrines from those of the Magi, who were his

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 35

followers. He practised enchantments, by means of which he
would send a panic among the forces that were brought to make
war against him, rendering the conflict by force of arms un*
necessary. He prescribed the use of certain herbs as all-power-
ful for the production of supernatural effects. He pretended to
the faculty of working miracles, and of superseding and altering
the ordinary course of nature. There was, beside the Chaldean
Zoroaster, a Persian known by the same name, who is said to
have been a contemporary of Darius Hystaspes.

GREECE,
Thus obscure and general is our information respecting the
Babylonians. But it was far otherwise with the Greeks. Long
before the period, when, by their successful resistance to the
Persian invasion, they had rendered themselves of paramount
importance in the history of the civilised world, they had their
poets and annalists, who preserved to future time the memory of
their tastes, their manners and superstitions, their strength, and
their weakness. Homer in particular had already composed his
two great poems, rendering the peculiarities of his countrymen
familiar to the latest posterity. The consequence of this is, that
the wonderful things of early Greece are even more frequent than
the record of its sober facts. As men advance in observation
and experience, they are compelled more and more to perceive
that all the phenomena of nature are one vast chain of uninter-
rupted causes and consequences: but to the eye of uninstructed
ignorance everything is astonishing, everything is unexpected.
The remote generations of mankind are in all cases full of pro*
digies: but it is the fortune of Greece to have preserved its early
adventures, so as to render the beginning pages of its history one
mass of impossible falsehoods.

DEITIES OF GREECE,
The Gods of the Greeks appear all of them once to have been
men. Their real or supposed adventures therefore make a part
of what is recorded respecting them. Jupiter was bom in Crete,
and being secreted by his mother in a cave, was suckled by a
goat. Being come to man's estate, he warred with the giants,
one of whom had an hundred hands, and two others, brethren,

3—3

36 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

grew nine inches every month, and when nine years old, were
fiiUy qualified to engage in aU exploits of corporeal strength.
-The war was finished, by the giants being overwhelmed with the
thunderbolts of heaven, and buried under mountains.

Minerva was born from the head of her father, without a
mother ; and Bacchus, coming into the world after the death of
his female parent, was inclosed in the thigh of Jupiter, and was
thus produced at the proper time in full vigour and strength,
Minerva had a shield, in which was preserved the real head of
Medusa, that had the property of turning every one that looked
on it into stone. Bacchus, when a child, was seized on by pirates
with the intention to sell him for a slave: but he waved a spear,
and the oars of the sailors were turned into vines, which climbed
the masts, and spread their clusters over the sails ; and tigers,
lynxes and panthers, appeared to swim round the ship, so terri-
fying the crew that they leaped overboard, and were changed
into dolphins. Bacchus, in his maturity, is described as having
t)een the conqueror of India. He did not set out on this expe-
dition like other conquerors, at the head of an army. He rode
in an open chariot, which was drawn by tame lions. His atten-
dants were men and women in great multitudes, eminently ac-
-complished in the arts of rural industry. Wherever he came, he
taught men the science of husbandry, and the cultivation of the
^ine. Wherever he came, he was received, not with hostility, but
with festivity and welcome. On his return, however, Lycurgus,
king of Thrace, and Pentheus, king of Thebes, set themselves
in opposition to the improvements which the East had received
with the most lively gratitude ; and Bacchus, to punish them,
caused Lycurgus to be torn to pieces by wild horses, and spread
a delusion among the family of Pentheus, so that they mistook him
for a wild boar which had broken into their vineyards, and of con-
sequence fellupon him, and he expired amidst a thousand wounds.

Apollo was the author of plagues and contagious diseases ; at
the same time that, when he pleased, he could restore salubrity
to a climate, and health and vigour to the sons of men. He was
he father of poetry, and possessed in an eminent degree the gift
of foretelling future events. Hecate, which was one of the names
of Diana, was distinguished as the Goddess of magic and en-

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 37

chantments. Venus was the Goddess of love, the most irresis-
tible and omnipotent impulse of which the heart of man is sus-
ceptible. The wand of Mercury was endowed with such virtues
that whoever it touched, if asleep, would start up into life and
alacrity, and, if awake, would immediately fall into a profound
sleep. When it touched the dying, their souls gently parted from
their mortal frame ; and, when it was applied to the dead, the
dead returned tp life. Neptune had the attribute of raising and
appeasing tempests: and Vulcan, the artificer of heaven and
earth not only produced the most exquisite specimens of skill,
but also constructed furniture that was endowed with a self-
moving principle, and would present itself for use or recede at
the will of its proprietor. Pluto, in perpetrating the rape 01
Proserpine, started up in his chariot through a cleft of the earth
in the vale of £nna in Sicily, and, having seized his prize, disaf)*
peared again by the way that he came.

Ceres, the mother of Proserpine, in her search after her lost
daughter, was received with peculiar hospitality by Celeus, king
of Eleusis. She became desirous of remunerating his liberality
by some special favour. She saw his only child laid in a cradle,
and labouring under a fatal distemper. She took him under her
protection. She fed him with milk from her own breast, and at
night covered him with coals of fire. Under this treatment he
not only recovered his strength, but shot up miraculously into
manhood, so that what in other men is the effect of years, was
accomplished in Triptolemus in as many hours. She gave him
for a gift the art of agriculture, so that he is said to have been
the first to teach mankind to sow and to reap corn, and to make
bread of the produce.

Prometheus, one of the race of the giants, was peculiarly dis-
tinguished for his proficiency in the arts. Among other extra-
ordinary productions he formed a man of clay, of such exquisite
workmanship, as to have wanted nothing but a living soul to
cause him to be acknowledged as the paragon of the world.
Minerva beheld the performance of Prometheus with approba-
tion, and offered him her assistance. She conducted him to
heaven, where he watched his opportunity to carry off on the tip
of his wand a portion of celestial fire from the chariot of the sun*

aS LIVES OF THE NECkOMANC^kS.

With this he animated his image ; and the man of Prohietheus
moved, and thought, and spoke, and became every thing that the
fondest wishes of his creator could ask. Jupiter ordered Vulcan
to make a woman, that should surpass this man. All the gods
gave her each one a several g^ft : Venus gave her the power to
charm ; the Graces bestowed on her symmetry of limb, and ele-
gance of motion ; Apollo the accomplishments of vocal and in-
strumental music ; Mercury the art of persuasive speech j Juno
a multitude of rich and gorgeous ornaments ; and Minerva the
management of the loom and the needle. Last of all, Jupiter
presented her with a sealed box, of which the lid was no sooner
unclosed, than a multitude of calamities and evils of all imagin*
able sorts flew out, only Hope remaining at the bottom.

Deucalion was the son of Prometheus and Pyrrha, his niece.
They married. In their time a flood occurred, which as they
imagined destroyed the whole human race; they were the only
survivors. By the direction of an oracle they cast stones over
their shoulders \ when, by the divine interposition, the stones
cast by Deucalion became men, and those cast by Pyrrha women.
Thus the earth was re-peopled.

I have put down a few of these particular's, as containing in
several instances the qualities of what is called magic, and thus
furnishing examples of some of the earliest occasions upon
which supernatural powers have been alleged to mix with
human affairs.

DEMIGODS. 1
The early history of mortals in Greece is scarcely separated
from that of the gods. The first adventurer that it is perhaps
proper to notice, as his exploits have I know not what of magic
in them, is Perseus, the founder of the metropolis and kingdom
of Mycenae. By way of rendering his birth illustrious, he is said
to have been the son of Jupiter, by Danae, the daughter of Acri-
sius, king of Argos. The king, being forewarned by an oracle
that his daughter should bear a son, by whose hand her father
should be deprived of life, thought proper to shut her up in a
tower of brass. Jupiter, having metamorphosed himself into a
shower of gold, found his way into her place of confinement, and

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 39

became the father of Perseus. On the discovery of this circum-
stance, Acrisius caused both mother and child to be inclosed in
a chest, and committed to the waves. The chest however drifted
upon the lands of a person of royal descent in the island of Seri-
phos, who extended his care and hospitality to both. When
Perseus grew to man's estate, he was commissioned by the King
of Seriphos to bring him the head of Medusa, one of the Gorgons.
Medusa had the wonderful faculty, that whoever met her eyes
was immediately turned into stone ; and the king, who had con-
ceived a passion for Danae, sent her son on this enterprise, with
the hope that he would never come back alive. He was however
favoured by the gods ; Mercury gave him wings to fly, Pluto an
invisible helmet, and Minerva a mirror-shield, by looking in
which he could discover how his enemy was disposed, without
the danger of meeting her eyes. Thus equipped, he accom-
plished his undertaking, cut off the head of the Gorgon, and
pursed it in a bag. From this exploit he proceeded to visit Atlas,
King of Mauritania, who refused him hospitality, and in revenge
Perseus turned him into stone. He next rescued 'Andromeda,
daughter of the King of Ethiopia, from a monster sent by Nep-
tune to devour her. And, lastly, returning to his mother, and
finding the King of Seriphos still incredulous and obstinate, he
turned him likewise into a stone.

The labours of Hercules, the most celebrated of the Greeks of
the heroic age, appear to have had little of magic in them, but
to have been indebted for their success to a corporal strength,
superior to that of all other mortals, united with an invincible
energy of mind, which disdained to yield to any obstacle that
could be opposed to him. His achievements are characteristic
of the rude and barbarous age in which he lived: he strangled
serpents, and killed the Erymanthian boar, the Nemaean lion,
and the Hydra.

Dy^DALVS.
Nearfy contemporary with the labours of MerCules is the his-
tory of Pasiphae and the Minotaur ; and this brings us again
within the sphere of magic. Pasiphae was the wife of Minos,
king of Crete, who conceived an unnatural passion for a beauti-

40 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

ful white bull, which Neptune had presented to the king. Having
found the means of gratifying her passion, she became the
mother of a monster, half-man and half-bull, called the Mino-
taur. Minos was desirous of hiding this monster from the ob-
servation of mankind, and for this purpose applied to Daedalus,
an Athenian, the most skilful artist of his time, who is said to
have invented the axe, the wedge, and the plummet, and to have
found out the use of glue. He first contrived masts and sails
for ships, and carved statues so admirably, that they not only
looked as if they were alive, but had actually the power of self-
motion, and would have escaped from the custody of their pos-
sessor, if they had not been chained to the wall.

Daedalus contrived for Minos a labyrinth, a wonderful structure,
that covered many acres of ground. The passages in this edi-
fice met and crossed each other with such intricacy, that a stranger
who had once entered the building, would have been starved to
death before he could find his way out. In this labyrinth Minos
shut up the Minotaur. Having conceived a deep resentment
against the people of Athens, where his only son had been killed
in a riot, he imposed upon them an annual tribute of seven noble
youths, and as many virgins to be devoured by the Minotaur.
Theseus, son of the king of Athens, put an end to this disgrace.
He was taught by Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, how to de-
stroy the monster, and furnished with a clue by which after-
wards to find his way out of the labyrinth.

t)aedalus for some reason having incurred the displeasure of
Minos, was made a prisoner by him in his own labyrinth. But
the artist being never at an end of his inventions, contrived with
feathers and wax to make a pair of wings for himself, and
escaped. Icarus, his son, who was prisoner along with him, was
pirovided by his father with a similar equipment. But the son,
who was inexperienced and heedless, approached too near the
sun in his flight ; and, the wax of his wings being melted with
the heat, he fell into the sea and was drowned.

THE ARGONAUTS.
Contemporary with the reign of Minos occurred the expedition
of the Argonauts. Jason, the son of the king of lolchos in

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 4*

Thessaly, was at the head of this expedition. Its object was to
fetch the golden fleece, which was hung up in a grove sacred to
Mars, in the kingdom of Colchis, at the eastern extremity of the
Euxine sea. He enlisted in this enterprise all the most gallant
spirits existing in the country, and among the rest Hercules,
Theseus, Orpheus, and Amphion. After having passed through
a multitude of perils, one of which was occasioned by the
Cyanean rocks at the entrance of the Euxine, that had the
quality of closing upon every vessel which attempted to make
its way between them and crushing it to pieces, a danger that
could only be avoided by sending a dove before as their harbin-
ger, they at length arrived.

MEDEA,

The golden fleece was defended by bulls, whose hoofs were
brass, and whose breath was fire, and by a never-sleeping dragon
that planted itself at the foot of the tree upon which the fleece was
suspended. Jason was prepared for his undertaking by Medea,
the daughter of the king of the country, herself an accomplished
magician, and furnished with philtres, drugs, and enchantments.
Thus equipped, he tamed the bulls, put a yoke on their necks,
and caused them to plough two acres of the stifFest land. He
killed the dragon, and, to complete the adventure, drew the
monster's teeth, sowed them in the ground, and saw an army of
soldiers spring from the seed. The army hastened forward to
attack him ; but he threw a large stone into the midst of their
ranks, when they immediately turned from him, and, falling on
each other, were all killed with their mutual weapons.

The adventure being accomplished, Medea set out with Jason
on his return to Thessaly. On their arrival, they found iEson,
the father of Jason, and Pelias, his uncle, who had usurped the
throne, both old and decrepid, Jason applied to Medea, and
asked her whether among her charms she had none to make an
old man young again. She replied she had : she drew the impo-
verished and watery blood from the body of iEson ; she infused
the juice of certain potent herbs into his veins ; and he rose from ,
the operation as fresh and vigorous a man as his son .

The daughters of Pelias professed a perfect willingness to
abdicate the throne of lolchos ; but, before they retired, they

4ii LIVES OF The NECROMANCEkS.

requested Medea to do the same kindness for their father which
she had already done for ^Eson. She said she would. She told
them the method was to cut the old man in pieces, and boil him
in a kettle with an infusion of certain herbs, and he would come
out as smooth and active as a child.

The daughters of Pelias a little scrupled the operation.
Medea, seeing this, begged they would not think she was de-
ceiving them. If however they doubted, she desired they would
bring her the oldest ram from their flocks, and they should see
the experiment. Medea cut up the ram, cast in certain herbs,
and the old bell-wether came out as beautiful and innocent a he-
lamb as was ever beheld. The daughters of Pelias were satisfied.
They divided their father in pieces ; but he was never restored
either to health or life.

From lolchos, upon some insurrection of the people, Medea
and Jason fled to Corinth. Here they lived ten years in much
harmony. At the end of that time Jason grew tired of his wife,
and fell in love with Glauce, daughter of the king of Corinth.
Medea was greatly exasperated with his infidelity, and, among
other enormities, slew with her own hand the two children she
had borne him before his face. Jason hastened to punish her
barbarity ; but Medea mounted a chariot drawn by fiery dragons,
fled through the air to Athens, and escaped

At Athens she married ^Egeus, king of that city, ^geus by
a former wife had a son, named Theseus, who for some reason
had been brought up obscure, unknown, and in exile. At a
suitable time he returned home to his father with the intention to
avow his parentage. But Medea was beforehand with him. She
put a poisoned goblet into the hands of iCgeus at an entertain-
ment he gave to Theseus, with the intent that he should deliver
it to his son. At the critical moment ^Egeus cast his eyes on the
sword of Theseus, which he recognized as that which he had de-
livered with his son, when a child, and had directed that it should
be brought by him, when a man, as a token of the mystery of his
birth. The goblet was cast away; the father and son rushed
into each other's arms ; and Medea fled from Athens in her
chariot drawn by dragons through the air, as she had years
before fled from Corinth.

tiVES OF THE NkCROMANCBRS, 43

CiRCE,

Circe was 'the sister ofiEetes and Pasiphae, and was, like
Medea, her niecej skilful in sorcery. She had besides the gift of
immortality. She was exquisitely beautiful ; but she employed
the charms of her persoil, and the seducing grace of her manners
to a bad purpose. She presented to every stranger wko landed
in her territory an enchanted cup, of which she intreated him to
drink. He no sooner tasted it than he was turned into a hog,
and was driven by the magician to her sty. The unfortunate
stranger retained under this loathsome appearance the conscious-
ness of what he had been, and mourned for ever the criminal
compliance by which he was brought to so melancholy a pass.

ORPHEUS,

Cicero* quotes Aristotle as affirming that there was no such
man as Orpheus. But Aristotle is at least single in that opinion.
And there are too many circumstances known respecting Orpheus,
and which have obtained the consenting voice of all antiquity, to
allow us to call in question his existence. He was a native of
Thrace, and from that country migrated into Greece. He tra-
velled into Egypt for the purpose of collecting there the informa-
tion necessary to the accomplishment of his ends. He died a
violent death ; and, as is almost universally affirmed, fell a sacri-
fice to the resentment and fury of the women of his native soil.*

Orpheus was doubtless a poet ; though it is not probable that
any of his genuine productions have been handed down to us.
He was, as all the poets of so remote a period were, extremely
accomplished in all the arts of vocal and instrumental music.
He civilized the rude inhabitants of Greece, and subjected them
to order and law. He formed them into communities. He is
said by Aristophanes 3 and Horace 4 to have reclaimed the
savage, man, from slaughter, and an indulgence in food that was
loathsome and foul. And this has with sufficient probability been
interpreted to mean, that he found the race of men among whom

* De Natura Deorum, lib. i., c. 38.

" Plato, De Republica, lib. x., subfinem,

3 Barpaxof, v. 1032. * De Arte Poetica, v. 391.

44 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

he lived cannibals, and that, to cure them the more completely of
this horrible practice, he taught them to be contented to subsist
upon the fruits of the earth.* Music and poetry are understood
to have been made specially instrumental by him to the effecting
this purpose. He is said to have made the hungry lion and the
famished tiger obedient to his bidding, and to put off their wild
and furious natures.

This is interpreted by Horace » and other recent expositors to
mean no more than that he reduced the race of savages as he
found them, to order and civilisation. But it was at first, perhaps,
understood more literally. We shall not do justice to the traditions
of these remote times, if we do not in imagination transport our-
selves among them, and teach ourselves to feel their feelings,
and conceive their conceptions. Orpheus lived in a time when
all was enchantment and prodigy. Gifted and extraordinary
persons in those ages believed that they were endowed with
marvellous prerogatives, and acted upon that belief. We may
occasionally observe, even in these days of the dull and the
literal, how great is the ascendency of the man over the beast,
whea he feels a full and entire confidence in that ascendency.
The eye and the gesture of man cannot fail to produce effects,
incredible till they are seen. Magic was the order of the day ;
and the enthusiasm of its heroes was raised to the highest pitch,
and attended with no secret misgivings. We are also to con-
sider that, in all operations of a magical nature, there is a
wonderful mixture- of frankness and bonhomie with a strong
vein of cunning and craft. Man in every age is full of incon-
gruous and incompatible principles ; and, when we shall cease to
be inconsistent, we shall cease to be men.

It is difficult fully to explain what is meant by the story of
Orpheus and Eurydice ; but in its circumstances it bears a
striking resemblance to what has been a thousand times re-
corded respecting the calling-up of the ghosts of the dead by
means of sorcery. The disconsolate husband has, in the first
place recourse to the resistless aid of music.3 After many pre-

» M^moires de TAcad^mie des Inscriptions. Tome V.,p. 117;

" De Arte Poetica, v. 391, 2, 3.

3 Virgil, Georgica, lib. iv. v. 464, etseqq. *"

L/P^£S OP THE NECROMANCERS. 45

paratives he appears to have effected his purpose, and prevailed
upon the powers of darkness to allow him the presence of his
beloved. She appears in the sequel, however, to have been a
thin and a fleeting shadow. He is forbidden to cast his eyes oil
her ; and, if he had obeyed this injunction, it is uncertain how
the experiment would have ended. He proceeds, however, as he
is commanded, towards the light of day. He is led to believe^that
his consort is following his steps. He is beset with a multitude
of unearthly phenomena. He advances for some time with con-
fidence. At length he is assailed with doubts. He has recourse
to the auricular sense, to know if she is following him. He can
hear nothing. Finally he can endure this uncertainty no longer ;
and, in defiance of the prohibition he has received, cannot re-
frain from turning his head to ascertain whether he is baffled,
and has spent all his labour in vain. He sees her ; but no
sooner he sees her, than she becomes evanescent and impal-
pable : farther and farther she retreats before him ; she utters a
shrill cry, and endeavours to articulate ; but she grows more and
more imperceptible ; and in the conclusion he is left with the
scene around him in all respects the same as it had been before
his incantations. The result of the whole that is known of
Orpheus, is, that he was an eminently great and virtuous man,
but was the victim of singular calamity.

We have not yet done with the history of Orpheus. As has
been said, he fell a sacrifice to the resentment and fury of the
women of his native soil. They are affirmed to have torn him
limb from limb. His head, divided from his body, floated down
the waters of the Hebrus, and miraculously, as it passed along
to the sea, it was still heard to exclaim, in mournful accents,
" Eurydice, Eurydice P ^ At length it was carried ashore on the
island of Lesbos.* Here, by some extraordinary concurrence of
circumstances, it found a resting-place in a fissure of a rock
over-arched by a cave, and, thus domiciliated, is said to have
retained the power of speech, and to have uttered oracles. Not
only the people of Lesbos resorted to it for guidance in difficult
questions, but also the Asiatic Greeks from Ionia and ^Etolia ;

^ Georgica, iv. 525. 2 Metamorphoses, xi. 55.

46 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

and its fame and character for predicting future events even ex-
tended to Babylon.*

AMPmON.

The story of Amphion is more perplexing than that of the
living Orpheus. Both of them turn in a great degree upon the
miraculous effects of music. Amphion was of the royal family
of Thebes, and ultimately became ruler, of the territory. He
is said, by the potency of his lyre, or his skill in the magic
art, to have caused the stones to follow him, to arrange them-
selves in the way he proposed, and without the intervention of
a human hand raised a wall about his metropohs." It is certainly
less difficult to conceive the savage man to be rendered placable,
and to conform to the dictates of civilisation, or even wild beasts
to be made tame, than to imagine stones to obey the voice and
the will of a human being. The example, however, is not sin-
gular ; and hereafter we shall find related that Merlin, the
British enchanter, by the power of magic caused the rocks of
Stonehenge, though of such vast dimensions, to be carried
through the air from Ireland to the place where we at present find
them. Homer mentions that Amphion, and his brother Zethus
built the walls of Thebes, but does not describe it as having
been done by miracle.3

TIRESIAS.

Tiresias was one of the most celebrated soothsayers of the
early ages of Greece. He lived in the times of OEdipus, and
the war of the seven chiefs against Thebes. He was afflicted
by the Gods with blindness, in consequence of some displeasure
they conceived against him ; but in compensation they endowed
him beyond all other mortals with the gift of prophecy. He is
said to have understood the language of birds. He possessed
the art of divining future events from the various indications
that manifest themselves in fire, in smoke, and in other ways,4
^ but to have set the highest value upon the communications of

1 Philostratus, Heroica, cap. v.

2 Horat, De Arte Poetica, v. 394. Pausanias.

3 Odyssey, lib. xi., v. 262. 4 Statius, Thebais, lib. x. v. 599.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 47

the dead, whom by spells and incantations he constrained to
appear and answer his inquiries j'^ and he is represented as
pouring out tremendous menaces against them, when they
showed themselves tardy to attend upon his commands.'

ABARIS.

Abaris, the Scythian, known to us for his visit to Greece, was
by all accounts a great magician. Herodotus says,3 that he is
reported to have travelled over the world with an arrow, eating
nothing during his journey. Other authors relate that this arrow
was given to him by Apollo, and that he rode upon it through
the air, over lands, and seas, and all inaccessible places.4 The
time in which he flourished is very uncertain, some having repre-
sented him as having constructed the Palladium, which, as long
as it was preserved, kept Troy from being taken by an enemy,s
and others affirming that he was familiar with Pythagoras, who
lived six hundred years later, and that he was admitted into his
special confidence.^ He is said to have possessed the faculty of
foretelling earthquakes, allaying storms, and driving away pesti^
lence ; he gave out predictions wherever he went ; and is
described as an enchanter, professing to cure diseases by virtue
of certain words which he pronounced over those who were
afflicted with them. 7

PYTHAGORAS,

The name of Pythagoras is one of the most memorable in the
records of the human species ; and his character is well worthy
of the minutest investigation. By this pame we are brought at
once within the limits of history properly so called. He lived in
the time of Cyrus and Darius Hystaspes, of Croesus, of Pisis-
tratus, of Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, and Amasis, King of
Egypt. Many hypotheses have been laid down respecting the
precise period of his birth and death ; but, as it is not to our

X Statius, Thebais, lib. iv. v. 599. ^ Ibid. lib. iv. v. 409, et seqq^

3 Lib. iv. c. 36. 4 lamblichus.

5 Julius Firmicus, «/«^ Scaliger, in Eusebium.

^ lamblichus, Vita Pythagoras. 7 Plato, Charmides.

48 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

purpose to enter into any lengthened discussions of that sort, we
will adopt at once the statement that appears to be the most
probable, which is that of Lloyd*, who fixes his birth about the
year before Christ 586, and his death about the year 506.

Pythagoras was a man of the most various accomplishments,
and appears to have penetrated in different directions into the
depths of human knowledge. He sought wisdom in its retreats
of fairest promise, in Egypt and other distant countries*. In
this investigation he employed the earlier period of his life, pro-
bably till he was forty, and devoted the remainder to such modes
of proceeding as appeared to him the most likely to secure the
advantage of what he had acquired to a late posterity 3.

He founded a school, and delivered his acquisitions by oral
communication to a numerous body of followers. He divided
his pupils into two classes, the one neophytes, to whom was ex-
plained only the most obvious and general truths, the other who
were admitted into the entire confidence of the master. These
last he caused to throw their property into a common stock, and
to live together in the same place of resort.4 He appears to
have spent the latter half of his life in that part of Italy, called
Magna Graecia, so denominated in some degree from the numer-
ous colonies of Grecians by whom it was planted, and partly
perhaps from the memory of the illustrious things which Pytha-
goras achieved there.s He is said to have spread the seeds of
political liberty in Crotona, Sybaris, Metapontum, and Rhegium,
and from thence in Sicily to Tauromenium, Catana, Agrigentum
and Himera.^ Charondas and Zaleucus, themselves famous
legislators, derived the rudiments of their political wisdom from
the instructions of Pythagoras. 7

But this marvellous man in someway, whether from the know-
ledge he received, or from his own proper discoveries, has se-
cured to his species benefits of a more permanent nature, and
which shall outlive the revolutions of ages, and the instability of
political institutions. He was a profound geometrician. The

X Chronological Account of Pythagoras and his Contemporaries.
» Laertius, lib. viii. c. 3. 3 Lloyd, uhi supra,

4 lamblichus, c. 17 S lamblichus, c. 29.

^ Ibid, c. 7. 7 Laertius, c. 15.

, LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 49

two theorems, that the internal angles of every right-line triangle
are equal to two right angles,* and that the square of the hypo-
thenuse of every right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the
squares of the other two sides,^ are ascribed to him. In memory
of the latter of these discoveries he is said to have offered a pub*
lie sacrifice to the gods ; and the theorem is still known by the
name of the Pythagorean theorem. He ascertained from th^
length of the Olympic course, which was understood to have
measured six hundred of Hercules's feet, the precise stature of
that hero.3 Lastly, Pythagoras is the first person, who is known
to have taught the spherical figure of the earth, and that we
have antipodes ;4 and he propagated the doctrine that the earth
is a planet, and that the sun is the centre, round which the earth
and the other planets move, now known by the name of the
Copemican system. s

To inculcate a pure and a simple mode of subsistence was also
an express object of pursuit to Pythagoras. He taught a total
abstinence from everything having had the property of animal
life. It has been affirmed, as we have seen,^ that Orpheus before
him taught the same thing. But the claim of Orpheus to this
distinction is ambiguous ; while the theories and dogmas of
the Samian sage, as he has frequently been styled, were more
methodically digested, and produced more lasting and unequivocal
effects. He tayght temperance in all its branches, and a reso-
lute subjection of the appetites of the body to contemplation and
the exercises of the mind ; and, by the unremitted discipline and
authority he exerted over his followers, he caused his lessons to
be constantly observed. There was therefore an edifying and
an exemplary simplicity that prevailed as far as the influence of
Pythagoras extended, that won golden opinions to his adherents
at all times that they appeared, and in all places. 7

One revolution that Pythagoras worked, was that, whereas,
immediately before, those who were most conspicuous among

^ Laertius c. li. ' Plutarchus, Symposiaca, lib. viii. Quaestio 2. .

3 Aulus Gellius, lib. i. c. i, from Plutarch. 4 Laertius, c. 19.

s Bailly, Hrstoire de I'Astronomie, lib. viii. § 3.

^ Plutarchus, Jde Esu Carniura. Ovidius, Metamorphoses, lib. xv.
Laertius, c. 12. - J lamblichus, c. i6,

4

so LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

the Greeks as instructors of mankind in understanding and vir-
tue, styled themselves sophists, professors of wisdom, this illus-
trious man desired to be known only by the appellation of a
philosopher, a lover of wisdom^. The sophists had previously
brought their denomination into discredit and reproach, by the
arrogance of their pretensions, and the imperious way in which
they attempted to lay down the law to the world.

The modesty of this appellation however did not altogether
Suit with the deep designs of Pythagoras, the ascendency he re-
solved to acquire, and the oracular subjection in which he deemed
it necessary to hold those who placed themselves under his in-
struction. This wonderful man set out with making himself a
model' of the passive and unscrupulous docility which he after-
wards required from others. He did not begin to teach till he
was forty years of agCj and from eighteen to that period he
studied in foreign countries,with the resolution to submit to all his
teachers enjoined, and to make himself niaster of their least com-
municated and most secret wisdom. In Egypt in particular, we
are told that, though he brought a letter of recommendation from
Polycrates, his native sovereign, to Amasis, king of that country^
who fully concurred with the views of the writer, the priests,
jealous of admitting a foreigner into their secrets, baffled him as
long as they could, referring him from one college to another,
and prescribing to him the most rigorous preparatives, not ex-
cluding the rite of circumcision*. But Pythagoras endured and
underwent everything, till at length their unwillingness was
conquered, and his perseverance received its suitable re-
ward.

When in the end Pythagoras thought himself fully qualified
for the task he had all along had in view, he was no less strict in
prescribing ample preliminaries to his own scholars. At the
time that a pupil was proposed to him, the master, we are told,
examined him with multiplied questions as to his principles, his
habits and intentions, observed minutely his voice and manner
of speaking, his walk and his gestures, the lines of his counte-
nance, and the expression and management of his eye, and, when
he was satisfied with these, then and not till then admitted him

'' T^nertius, c. 6. ^ Clemens Alexandrinus, Stromata, lib. i. p. 302.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 5!

&s a probationer.^ It is to be supposed that all this must have
been personal. As soon, however, as this was over, the mastei'
was withdrawn from the sight of the pupil ; and a noviciate of
three and five, in all, eight years*, was prescribed to the sfcholar,
during which time he was only td hear his instructor from be-
hind a curtain, and the strictest silence was enjoined him through
the whole period. As the instructions Pythagoras received in
Egypt and the East admitted of no dispute, so in his turn he re-
quired an unreserved submission from those who heard him;
avTOQ e<j>Tj^ "the master has said it,*' was deemed a sufficient solu-
tion to all doubt and uncertainty.3

To give the greatest authority and effect to his comniunications,
Pythagoras hid himself during the day at least from the great
body of his pupils, and was only seen by them at night. Indeed,
there is no reason to suppose that any one was admitted into his
entire familiarity; When he came forth, he appeared in a long
garment of the purest white, with a flowing beard, and a garland
upon his head; He is said to have been of the finest symmetri-
cal form, with 2t majestic carriage, and a grave and awful coun-
tenance.4 He suffered his followers to believe that he was one
of the godsj the Hyperborean Apollo,s and is said to have told
Abaris that he assumed the human form, that he might the better
invite men to an easiness of approach and to confidence in
him.* What, however, seems to be agreed in by all his bio-
graphers, is that he professed to have already in different ages
appeared in the likeness of man : first as -^thalides, the son of
Mercury ; and, when his father expressed himself ready to in-
vest him with any gift short of immortality, he prayed that, as
the human soul is destined successively to dwell in various
forms, he might have the privilege in each to remember his
former state of being, which was granted him. From iEthalides
he became Euphorbus, who slew Patroclus at the siege of Troy.
He then appeared as Hermotimus, then Pyrrhus, a fisherman of
Delos, and finally Pythagoras. He said that a period of time
was interposed between each transmigration, during which he

« lambllchus, c, 17. » Laertius, c. 8. lamblichus, c. 17,

3 Cicero, De Natura Deorum, lib. i, c. 5.

* Laertius, c. 9. s Ibid. 6 lamblichus, c. 19.

4—2

S2 LIVES OP THE NECkOMANCEkS.

visited the seat of departed souls ; and he professed to relate a
part of the wonders he had seen.^ He is said to have eaten
sparingly and in secret, and in all respects to have given
himself out for a being not subject to the ordinary laws of
nature.2

iPythagoras therefore pretended to miraculous endowments-
Happening to be on the sea-shore when certain fishermen drew
to land an enormous multitude of fishes, he desired them to
allow him to dispose of the capture, which they consented to,
provided he would name the precise number they had caught.
He did so, and required that they should throw their prize into
the sea again, at the same time paying them the value of the
fish.3 He tamed a Daunian bear by whispering in his ear, and
prevailed on him henceforth to refrain from the flesh of animals,
and to feed on vegetables. By the same means he induced an
ox not to eat beans, which was a diet specially prohibited by
Pythagoras ; and he called down an eagle from his flight, causing
him to sit on his hand, and submit to be stroked down by the
philosopher.4 In Greece, when he passed the river Nessus to
Macedon, the stream was heard to salute him with the words
** Hail, Pythagoras !"s When Abaris addressed him as one of
the heavenly host, he took the stranger aside, and convinced
him that he was under no mistake, by exhibiting to him his
thigh of gold : or, according to another account, he used the
same sort of evidence at a certain time, to satisfy his pupils of
his celestial descent.^ He is said to have been seen on the same
day at Metapontum in Italy, and at Taurominium in Sicily,
though' these places are divided by the sea, so that it was con-
ceived that it would cost several days to pass from one to the
other. 7 In one instance he absented himself from his associates
in Italy for a whole year ; and when he appeared again, related
that he had passed that time in the infernal regions, describing
likewise the marvellous things he had seen.^ Diogenes Laer-
tius, speaking of this circumstance, affirms, however, that he

' Laertius, c. i. ' Ibid. c. i8. 3 lamblichus, c. 8.

4 Ibid. c. 13. 5 Laertius, c. 9. lamblichus. c. 28.

^Laertius, c. 9. lamblichus, c. 18, ^ Ibid. c. 28.

^ Laertius, c, 21,

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 53

remained during this period in a cave, where his mother con-
veyed to him intelligence and necessaries, and that, when he
came once more into light and air, he appeared so emaciated
and colourless, that he might well be believed to have come out
of Hades.

The close of the life of Pythagoras was, according to every
statement, in the midst of misfortune and violence. Some par-
ticulars are related by lamblichus,^ which, though he is not an
authority beyond all exception, are so characteristic as seem to
entitle them to the being transcribed. This author is more cir-
cumstantial than any other in stating the elaborate steps by
which the pupils of Pythagoras came to be finally admitted into
the full confidence of the master. He says that they passed
three years in the first place in a state of probation, carefully
watched by their seniors, and exposed to their occasional taunts
and ironies, by way of experiment to ascertain whether they
were of a temper sufficiently philosophical and firm. At the ex-
piration of that period they were admitted to a noviciate, in
which they were bound to uninterrupted silence, and heard the
lectures of the master, while he was himself concealed from
their view by a curtain. They were then received to initiation,
and required to deliver over their property to the common stock.
They were admitted to intercourse with the master. They were
invited to a participation of the most obscure theories, and the
abstrusest problems. If, however, in this stage of their progress
they were discovered to be too weak of intellectual penetration,
or any other fundamental objection were established against
them, they were expelled the community ; the double of the
property they had contributed to the conmion stock was paid
down to them; a head stone and a monument inscribed with
their names was set up in the place of meeting of the commu-
nity ; they were considered as dead ; and, if afterwards they
met by chance any of those who were of the privileged few, they
were treated by them as entirely strangers.

Cylon, the richest man, or, as he is in one place styled, the
prince, of Crotona, had manifested the greatest partiality tq

' lamblichus, c, 17.

54. LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

Pythagoras. He was at the same time a man of rudo, iin-
patient and boisterous character. He, together with Perialus of
Thurium, submitted to all the severities of the Pythagorean
school. They passed the three years of probation, and the five
years of silence. They were received into the familiarity of the
master. They were then initiated, and delivered all their wealth
into the common stock. They were, however, ultimately pror
nounced deficient in intellectual power, or for some other reason
were not judged worthy to continue among the confidential pupils
of Pythagoras. They were expelled. The double of the pro-
perty they had contributed was paid back to them. A mopu-?
ment was set up in memory of what they had been ; and they
were pronounced dead to the school.

It will easily be conceived in what temper Cylon sustained
this degradation. Qf Perialus we hear nothing further. But
Cylon, from feelings of the deepest reverence and awe for Py»
thagoras, which he had cherished for years, was filled even to
bursting with inextinguishable hatred and revenge. The un-
paralleled merits, the venerable age of the master whom he had
so long followed, had no power to control his violence. His
paramount influence in the city insured him the command of a
great body of followers. He excited them to a frame of turbu- *
lence and riot He represented to them how intolerable was the
despotism of the pretended philosopher. They surrounded the
school in which the pupils were accustomed to assemble, and
set it on fire. Forty persons perished in the flames.^ According
to some accounts Pythagoras was absent at the time. According
to others he and two of his pupils escaped. He retired from
Crotona to Metapontum. But the hostility which had broken out
in the former city, followed him there. He took refuge in the
Temple of the Muses. But he was held so closely besieged
that no provisions could be conveyed to him ; and he finally
perished with hunger, after, according to Laertius, forty days'
abstinence,^

It is difficult to imagine anything more instructive, and mqre
pregnant with matter for salutary reflection, than the contrast
presented to us by the character and system of action of Py-

' lamblichus, c, 35,]i^Laertius, c. 2z, ^ ^ Laertius, c, 21,

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 55

thagoras on the one hand, and those of the great inquirers of the
last two centuries, for example, Bapon, Newton, and Locke, on
the other. Pythagoras probably does not yield to any one of
these in the evidences of true intellectual greatness. In his
school, in the followers he trained resembling himself, and in
the salutary effects he produced on the institutions of the various
republics of Magna Graecia and Sicily, he must be allowed
greatly to have excelled them. His discoveries of various pro?
positions in geometry, of the earth as a planet, and of the solar
system as now universally recognised, clearly stamp him a genius
of the highest order.

Yet this man, thus enlightened and phllanthropical, estab-
lished his system of proceeding upon narrow and exclusive prin-?
ciples, and conducted it by methods of artifice, quackery and
delusion. One of his leading maxims was, that the great and
fundamental truths to the establishment of which he devoted
himself, were studiously to be concealed from the vulgar, and
only to be imparted to a select few, and after years of the
severest noviciate and trial. He learned his earliest lessons of
wisdom in Egypt after this method, and he conformed through
life to the example which had thus been delivered to him. The
s^v^re examination that he made of the candidates previously
to their being admitted into his school, and the years of silence
that were then prescribed to them, testify this. He instructed
them by symbols, obscure and enigmatical propositions, which
they were first to exercise their ingenuity to expound. The
authority and dogmatical assertions of the master were to
ren^ain unquestioned ; and the pupils were to fashion them-
selves to obsequious and implicit submission, and were the
furthest in the world from being encouraged to the independent
exercise of their own understandings. There was nothing that
Pythagoras was more fixed to discountenance, than the com-
munication of the truths upon which he placed the highest
value, to the uninitiated. It is not probable therefore that he
wrote anything : all was communicated orally, by such grada-
tions, and with such discretion, as he might think fit to adopt
and to exercise.

Pelusion and falsehood were main features of his instruction.

56 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

With what respect therefore can we consider, and what manli-
ness worthy of his high character and endowments can we ini'
pute to, his discourses delivered from behind a curtain, his
hiding himself during the day, and only appearing by night in a
garb assumed for the purpose of exciting awe and veneration ?
What shall we say to the story of his various transmigrations ?
At first sight it appears in the light of the most audacious and
unblushing imposition. And, if we were to yield so far as to
admit that by a high-wrought enthusiasm, by a long train of
maceration and visionary reveries, he succeeded in imposing on
himself, this, though in a different way, would scarcely less
detract from the high stage of eminence upon which the anobler
parts of his character would induce us to place him.

Such were some of the main causes that have made his efforts
perishable, and the lustre which should have attended his genius
in a great degree transitory and fugitive. He was probably much
under the influence of a contemptible jealousy, and must be con-
sidered as desirous that none of his contemporaries or followers
should eclipse their master. All was oracular and dogmatic in
the school of Pythagoras. He prized, and justly prized, the
greatness of his attainments and discoveries, and had no con-
ception that anything could go beyond them. He did not en-
courage, nay, he resolutely opposed, all true independence of
mind, and that undaunted spirit of enterprise which is the at-
mosphere in which the sublimest thoughts are most naturally
generated. He therefore did not throw open the gates of science
and wisdom, and invite every comer ; but on the contrary nar-
rowed the entrance, and carefully reduced the number of aspi-
rants. He thought not of the most Hkely methods to give
strength and permanence and an extensive sphere to the pro-
gress of the human mind. For these reasons he wrote nothing ;
but consigned all to the frail and uncertain custody of tradition.
And distant posterity has amply avenged itself upon the narrow-
ness of his policy ; and the name of Pythagoras, which would
otherwise have been ranked with the first luminaries of mankind,
and consigned to everlasting gratitude, has in consequencejof a
few radical and fatal mistakes, been often loaded with>bloquy,
and the hero who bore it been indispriminately clags?^ aii^ong
the votaries of imposture and artifice.

UVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 57

EPIMRNIDES.

Epimenides has been mentioned among the disciples of Pytha-
goras ; but he probably lived at an earlier period. He was a
native of Crete. The first extraordinary circumstance that is
recorded of him is, that, being very young, he was sent by his
father in search of a stray sheep, when, being overcome by the
heat of the weather, he retired into a cave, and slept fifty-seven
years. Supposing that he had slept only a few hours, he re-
paired first to his father's country-house, which he found in
possession of a new tenant, and then to the city, where he
encountered his younger brother, now grown an old man, who
with difficulty was brought to acknowledge him*. It was pro-
bably this circumstance that originally brought Epimenides into
repute as a prophet, and a favourite of the Gods.

Epimenides appears to have been one of those persons, who
make it their whole study to delude their fellow-men, and to ob-
tain for themselves the reputation of possessing supernatural
gifts. Such persons, almost universally, and particularly in ages
of ignorance and wonder, become themselves the dupes of their
own pretensions. He gave out that he was secretly subsisted by
food brought to him by the nymphs ; and he is said to have
taken nourishment in so small quantities, as to be exempted from
the ordinary necessities of nature^. He boasted that he could
send his soul out of his body, and recal it when he pleased; and
alternately appeared an inanimate corpse, and then again his life
would return to him, and he appear capable of every human
function as befores. He is said to have practised the ceremony
of exorcising houses and fields, and thus rendering them fruitful
and blessed4. He frequently uttered prophecies of events with
such forms of ceremony and sUch sagacious judgment, that they
seemed to come to pass as he predicted.

One of the most memorable acts of his life happened in this
manner. Cylon, the head of one of the principal families in
Athens, set on foot a rebellion against the government, and sur-

' Laertius, Lib. i., c. 109. Plinius, Lib. vii., c. 52.
a Laertius, c. 113, 3 ibid. * Ibid, c. iii.

58 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

prised the citadel. His power however was of short duration.
Siege was laid to the place, and Cylon found his safety in flight
His partisans forsook their arms, and took refuge at the altars,
Seduced from this security by fallacious promises, they were
brought to judgment and all of them put to death. The gods
were said to be offended with this violation of the sanctums of
religion, and sent a plague upon the city. All things were in
confusion, and sadness possessed the whole conmiunity. Pro-
digies were perpetually seen ; the spectres of the dead walked
the streets ; and terror universally prevailed. The sacrifices
offered to the gods exhibited the most unfavourable symptoms.'
In this emergency the Athenian senate resolved to send fpr
Epimenides to come to their relief. His reputation was great.
He was held for a holy and devout man, and wise in celestial
things by inspiration from above. A vessel was fitted out under
the command of one of the first citizens of the state to fetch
Epimenides from Crete. He performed various rites and puri-
fications. He took a certain number of sheep, black and white,
and led them to the Areopagus, where he caused them to be let
loose to go wherever they would. He directed certain persons
to follow them, and mark the place where they lay down. He
inquired to what particular deity the spot was consecrated, and
sacrificed the sheep to that deity ; and in the result of these
ceremonies the plague was stayed. According to others he put
an end to the plague by the sacrifice of two human victims.
The Athenian senate, full of gratitude to their benefactor, ten-
dered the gift of a talent. But Epimenides refused all compen-
sation, and only required, as an acknowledgment of what he
had done, that there should be perpetual peace between the
Athenians and the people of Gnossus, his native city'. He is
said to have died shortly after his return to his country, being of
the age of one hundred and fifty-seven years.3

EMPEDOCLES,

Empedocles^^has alsojbeen mentioned as a disciple of Pytha-
goras. But he probably lived too late for that to hz^v^ ^e^n ^he

* Plutarch, Vita Solonis. Laertius, lib. i., c. 109.

» Plutarch, Vita Solonis. Laertius, lib. i., c. no. 3 Ibid.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 59

case. His principles were in a great degree similar to those of
that illustrious personage ; and he might have studied under one
of the immediate successors of Pythagoras. He was a citizen
of Agrigentum in Sicily ; and, having inherited considerable
wealth, exercised great authority in his native place.' He was
a distinguished orator ai>d poet He was greatly conversant
in the study of nature, and was eminent for his skill in medi-
cine.3 Jn addition to these accomplishments, he appears to
have been a devoted adherent to the principles of liberty. He
effected the dissolution of the ruling council of Agrigentum, and
substituted in their room a triennial magistracy, by means of
which the public authority became not solely in the hands of the
rich as before, but was shared by them with expert and intelli-
gent men of an inferior class.3 He opposed all arbitrary exer-
cises of rule. He gave dowries from his own stores to many
young maidens of impoverished families, and settled them in
eligible n^arriages.4 He performed many cures upon his fellow-
citizens; and is especially celebrated for having restored a
woman to life, who had been apparently dead, according to one
account for seven days, but according to others for thirty .s

But the most memorable things known of Empedocles, are
contained in the fragments of his verses that have been pre-
served to us. In one of them he says of himself, " I well re?
member the time before I was Empedocles, that I once was a
boy, then a girl, a plant, a glittering fish, a bird that cut theair."^
Addressing those who resorted to him for improvement and wis-
dom, he says, " By my iastructions you shall learn medicines
that are powerful to cure disease, and re-animate old age ; you
shall be able to calm the savage winds which lay waste the
labours of the husbandman, and, when you will, shall send forth
the tempest again ; you shall cause the skies to be fair and
serene, or once more shall draw down refreshing showers, re-
animating the fruits of the earth; nay, you shall recal the
strength of the dead man, when he has already become the
victim of Pluto. 7*' Further, speaking of himself, Empedocles

* Laertius, lib. viii., c, 51, 64. * Ibid. c. 57. 3 Ibid, c. 66.

4 Ibid. c. 73. 5 Plinius, lib. vii. c. 52. Laertius, c. 61.

; c Laertius, c, yj. ^ Ibid, c. 59.

6o LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

exclaims : "Friends, who inhabit the great city laved by the
yellow Acragas, all hail ! I mix with you a god, no longer
a mortal, and am everywhere honoured by you, as is just;
crowned with fillets, and fragrant garlands, adorned with which
when I visit populous cities, I am revered by both men and
women, who follow me by ten thousands, inquiring tjie road to
boundless wealth, seeking the gift of prophecy, and who would
learn the marvellous skill to cure all kinds of diseases/'*

The best known account of the death of Empedocles may
reasonably be considered as fabulous. From what has been
said it sufficiently appears, that he was a man of extraordinary
intellectual endowments, and the most philanthropical disposi-
tions ; at the same time that he was immoderately vain, aspiring
by every means in his power to acquire to himself a deathless
remembrance. "Working on these hints, a story has been in-
vented that he aspired to a miraculous way of disappearing from
among men ; and for this purpose repaired, when alone, to the
top of Mount iCtna, then in a state of eruption, and threw him-
self down the burning crater ; but it is added, that in the result
of this perverse ambition he was baffled, the volcano having
thrown up one of his brazen sandals, by means- of which the
mode of his death became known.^

ARISTEAS,

Herodotus tell a marvellous story of one Aristeas, a poet of
Proconnesus, an island of the Propontis. This man, coming by
chance into a fuller's workshop in his native place, suddenly fell
down dead. As the man was of considerable rank, the fuller
immediately, quitting and locking up his shop, proceeded to in-
form his family of what had happened. The relations went
accordingly, having procured what was requisite to give ;the
deceased the rites of sepulture, to the shop ; but, when it was
opened, they could discover ho vestige of Aristeas, either dead
or alive. A traveller, however, from the neighbouring town of
Cyzicus on the continent, protested that he had just left that
place, and, as he set foot in the wherry which had brought him

' Laertius, c. 6?. » Ibid, c, 69. Horat. De Arte Poetica, v. 463.

Lives of the necromancers, 6x

over, had met Aristeas, and held a particular conversation with
him. Seven years after, Aristeas reappeared at Proconnesus,
resided there a considerable time, and during this abode wrote
his poem of the wars of the one-eyed Arimaspians and the
Gryphons. He then again disappeared in an unaccountable
manner. But, what is more than all extraordinary, three hun-
dred and forty years after this disappearance, he showed himself
again at Metapontum, in Magna Graecia, and commanded the
citizens to erect a statue in his honour near the temple of Apollo
in the forum ; which being done, he raised himself in the air ;
and flew away in the form of a crow.*

hermotimus.

Hermotimus, or, as Plutarch names him, Hermodorus ol
Clazomene, is said to have possessed, like Epimenides, the mar-
vellous power of quitting his body, and returning to it again, as
often, and for as long a time, as he pleased. In these absences
his unembodied spirit would visit what places he thought proper,
observe everything that was going on, and when he returned to
his fleshy tabernacle, make a minute relation of what he had
seen. Hermotimus had enemies, who, one time when his body
had lain unanimated unusually long, beguiled his wife, made her
believe that he was certainly dead, and that it was disrespectful
and indecent to keep him so long in that state. The woman
therefore placed her husband on the funeral pyre, and consumed
Jiim to ashes j so that, continues the philosopher, when the soul
of Hermotimus came back again, it no longer found its custom-
ary receptacle to retire into.* Certainly, this kind of treatment
appeared to furnish an infallible criterion, whether the seeming
absences of the soul of this miraculous man were pretended or
real

THE MOTHER OF DEMARATUS, KING OF SPARTA,
Herodotus3 tells a story of the mother of Demaratus, king of
Sparta, which bears a striking resemblance to the fairy tales of

I Herodotus, lib. iii. c. 14, 15. Plinius, lib. vii. c. 52.
" Plutarch, De Genio Socratis. Lucian, Muscae Encomium. Plinius,
lib, vii. c. 53. 3 Lib. iii. c. 61, 62.

,- ■^■- rr>

LIV^S OF THM NECROMANCMkS. 63

These priests received the embassy with all due solemnity, and
retired. A priestess, or Pythia, who was seldom or never seen
by any of the profane vulgar, was the immediate vehicle of
communication with the god. She was cut off from all inter-
course with the world, and was carefully trained by the attend-
ant priests. Spending almost the whole of her time in solitude,
and taught to consider her office as ineffably sacred, she saw
visions, and was for the most part in a state of great excitement.

The Pythia, at least of the Delphian god, was led on with
much ceremony to the performance of her office, and placed upon
the sacred tripod. The tripod, we are told, stood over a chasm
in the rock, from which issued fumes of an inebriating quality.
The Pythia became gradually penetrated through every limb
with these fumes, till her bosom swelled, her features enlarged^
her mouth foamed, her voice seemed supernatural, and she
uttered words that could sometimes scarcely be called articulate.
She could with difficulty contain herself, and seemed to be pos-
sessed, and wholly overpowered, with the god; After a prelude
of many unintelligible sounds, uttered with fervour and a sort of
frenzy, she became by degrees more distinct. She uttered inco^
herent sentences, with breaks and pauses, that were filled up with
preternatural efforts and distorted gestures ; while the priests
stood by, carefully recording her words, and then reducing them
into a sort of obscure signification. They finally digested them
for the most part into a species of hexameter verse. We may
suppose the supplicants during this ceremony placed at a proper
distance, so as to observe these things imperfectly, while the
less they understood, they were ordinarily the more impressed
with religious awC) and prepared implicitly to receive what was
communicated to them. Sometimes the priestess found herself
in a frame not entirely ^qual to her function, and refused for
the present to proceed with the ceremony.

The priests of the oracle doubtless conducted them in a cer-
tain degree like the gipsies and fortune-tellers of modern times,
cunningly procuring to themselves intelligence in whatever way
they could, and ingeniously worming out the secrets of their
suitors, at the same time contriving that their drift should least
of all be suspected. But their main resource probably was in

64 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

the obscurity, almost amounting to unintelligibleness, of theif
responses. Their prophecies in most cases required the com-
ment of the event to make them understood ; and it not seldom
happened that the meaning in the sequel was found to be the
diametrically opposite of that which the pious votaries had ori-
ginally conceived.

In the meantime, the obscurity of the oracles was of inexpres-
sible service to the cause of superstition. If the event turned
out to be such as could in no way be twisted to come within the
scope of the response, the pious suitor only concluded that the
failure was owing to the grossness and carnality of his own ap-
prehension, and not to any deficiency in the institution. Thus
the oracle by no means lost credit, even when its meaning re-
mained for ever in its original obscurity^ But when, by any for-
tunate chance, its predictions seemed to be verified, then the
unerringness of the oracle was lauded from nation to nation ;
and the omniscience of the God was admitted with astonishment
and adoration.

It would be a vulgar and absurd mistake, however, to suppose
that all this was merely the affair of craft, the multitude only
being the dupes, while the priests in cold blood carried on the
deception, and secretly laughed at the juggle they were palming
on the world. They felt their own importance; and they cherished
it. They felt that they were regarded by their countrymen as
something more than human j and the opinion entertained of
them by the world around them, did not fail to excite a respon-
sive sentiment in their own bosoms. If their contemporaries
willingly ascribed to them an exclusive sacredness, by how much
stronger an impulse were they led fully to receive so flattering a
suggestion ! Their minds were in a perpetual state of exaltation j
and they believed themselves specially favoured by the God
whose temple constituted their residence. A small matter is
found sufficient to place a creed which flatters all the passions of
its votaries on the most indubitable basis. Modern philoso-
phers think that by their doctrine of gases they can explain all
the appearances of the Pythia ; but the ancients, to whom this
doctrine was unknown, admitted these appearances as the un-
doubted evidence of an interposition from heaven.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 65

It is certainly a matter of the extremest difficulty, for us in
imagination to place ourselves in the situation of those who be-
lieved in the ancient polytheistical creed. And yet these believers
nearly constituted the whole of the population of the kingdoms
of antiquity. Even those who professed to have shaken off the
prejudices of their education, and to rise above the absurdities
of paganism, had still some of the old leaven adhering to them.
One of the last acts of the life of Socrates, was to order the sacri-
fice of a cock to be made to iSsculapius.

Now the creed of paganism is said to have made up to the
number of thirty thousand deities. Every kingdom, every city,
every street, nay, in a manner every house, had its protecting
god. These gods were rivals to each other; and were each
jealous of his own particular province, and watchful against the
intrusion of any neighbour deity upon ground where he had a
superior right. The province of each of these deities was of
small extent ; and therefore their watchfulness and jealousy of
their appropriate honours do not enter into the slightest compa-
rison with tie Providence of the God who directs the concerns
of the universe* They had ample leisure to employ in vindicate
ing their prerogatives. Prophecy was of all means the plainest
and most obvious for each deity to assert his existence, and to
enforce the reverence and submission of his votaries. Prophecy
was that species of interference which was least liable to the
being confuted and exposed. The oracles, as we have said, were
delivered in terms and phrases that were nearly unintelligible.
If therefore they met with no intelligible fulfilment, this lost
them nothing; and, if it gained them no additional credit, neither
did it expose them to any disgrace. Whereas every example,
where the obscure prediction seemed to tally with, and be illus-
trated by any subsequent event, was hailed with wonder and ap*
plause, confirmed the faith of the true believers, and was held
forth as a victorious confutation of the doubts of the infidel.

INVASION OF XERXES INTO GREECE.

It is particularly suitable in this place to notice the eventswhich
took place at Delphi upon occasion of the memorable invasion
of Xerxes into Greece, This was indeed a critical moment for

5

66 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

the heathen mythology. The Persians were pointed and express
in their hostility against the altars and temples of the Greeks.
It was no sooner known that the straits of Thermopylae had
been forced, than the priests consulted the god, as to whether
they should bury the treasures of the temple, so to secure
them against the sacrilege of the invader. The answer of the
oracle was : " Let nothing be moved ; the god is sufficient for
the protection of his rights." The inhabitants therefore of the
neighbourhood withdrew : only sixty men and the priest re-
mained. The Persians in the mean time approached. Pre-
viously to this, however, the sacred arms which were placed in
the temple were seen to be moved by invisible hands, and
deposited on the declivity which was on the outside of the
building. The invaders no sooner showed themselves, than a
miraculous storm of thunder and lightning rebounded and
flashed among the multiplied hills which surrounded the sacred
area, and struck terfor into all hearts. Two vast fragments were
detached from the top of Mount Parnassus, and crushed hun-
dreds in their fall. A voice of warlike acclamation issued from
within the walls. Dismay seized the Persian troops. The Del-
phians then, rushing from their caverns, and descending from
the summits, attacked them with great slaughter. Two persons,
exceeding all human stature, and that were said to be the demi-
gods whose fanes were erected near the temple of Apollo, joined
in the pursuit, and extended the slaughter.* It has been said
that the situation of the place was particularly adapted to this
mode of defence. Surrounded and almost overhung with lofty
mountain-summits, the area of the city was enclosed within
crags and precipices. No way led to it but through defiles,
narrow and steep, shadov;ed with wood, and commanded at
every step by fastnesses from above. In such a position arti-
ficial fires and explosion might imitate a thunderstorm. Great
pains had been taken to represent the place as altogether
abandoned ; and therefore the detachment of rocks from the
top of Mount Parnassus, though effected by human hands,
might appear altogether supernatural.

' Herodotus, lib. viii. c. 36, 37, 38, 39.

UV^S OF THE NECROMANCERS. 67

Nothing can more forcibly illustrate the strength of the re-
ligious feeling among the Greeks than the language of the
Athenian government at the time of the second descent of the
Persian armament upon their territory, when they were again
compelled to abandon their houses and land to the invader.
Mardonius said to them : " I am thus commissioned by the King
of Persia: he will release and give back to you your country ; he
invites you to choose a further territory, whatever you may think
desirable, which he will guarantee to you to govern as you shall
judge fit. He will rebuild for you, without its costing you either
money or labour, the temples which in his former incursion he
destroyed with fire. It is in vain for you to oppose him by force,
for his armies are innumerable.'' To which the Athenians replied,
" As long as the sun pursues his course in the heavens, so long
will we resist the Persian invader." Then, turning to the Spartan
ambassadors who were sent to encourage and animate them to
persist, they added, " It is but natural that your employers should
apprehend that we might give way and be discouraged. But
there is no sum of money so vast, and no region so inviting and
fertile, that could buy us to concur in the enslaving of Greece.
Many and resistless are the causes which induce us to this
resolve. First and chiefest, the temples and images of the gods,
which Xerxes has burned and laid in ruins, and which we are
called upon to avenge to the utmost, instead of forming a league
with him who made this devastation. Secondly, the considera-
tion of the Grecian race, the same with us in blood and in
speech, the same in religion and manners, and whose cause we
will never betray. Know therefore now, if you knew not before
that, as long as a single Athenian survives, we will never swerve
from the hostility to Persia to which we have devoted ourselves.**

Contemplating this magnanimous resolution, it is in vain for
us to reflect on the absurdity, incongruity and frivolousness, as
we apprehend it, of the pagan worship, inasmuch as we find,
whatever we may think of its demerits, that the most heroic
people that ever existed pn earth, in the hour of their direct
calamity, regarded a zealous and fervent adherence to that
religion as the most sacred of all duties.^

^ Herodotus, lib. vlii. c, 140, ct seqq,

5-2

68 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

DEMOCRITUS.

The fame of Democritus has sustained a singular fortune.
He is represented by Pliny as one of the most superstitious of
mortals. This character is founded on certain books which ap-
peared in his name. In these books he is made to say, that, if
the blood of certain birds be mingled together, the combination
will produce a serpent, of which whoever eats will become en-
dowed with the gift of understanding the language of birds.*
He attributes a multitude of virtues to the limbs of a dead
chameleon : among others that, if the left foot of this animal be
grilled, and there he added certain herbs, and a particular
unctuous preparation, it will have the quality to render the per-
son who carries it about him invisible." But all this is wholly irre-
concilable with the known character of Democritus, who dis-
tinguished himself by the hypothesis that the world was framed
from the fortuitous concourse of atoms, and that the soul died
with the body. And accordingly Lucian,3 a more judicious
author than Pliny, expressly cites Democritus as the strenuous
opposer of all the pretenders to miracles. "Such juggling
tricks," he says, " call for a Democritus, an Epicurus, a Metro-
dorus, or some one of that temper, who should endeavour to
detect the illusion, and would hold it for certain, even if he could
not fully lay open the deceit, that the whole was a lying pretence,
and had not a spark of reality in it."

Democritus was in reality one of the most disinterested
characters on record in the pursuit of truth. He has been
styled the father of experimental philosophy. When his father
died, and the estate came to be divided between him and two
brothers, he chose the part which was in money, though the
smallest, that he might indulge himself in travelling in pursuit
of knowledge. He visited Egypt and Persia, and turned aside
into Ethiopia and India. He is reported to have said, that he
had rather be the possessor of one of the cardinal secrets of
nature, than of the diadem of Persia.

X Historia Naturalis, lib. x. c. 49;
, « Plinius, lib. xxviii. c, 8.
J» Pseudomantis, c. 17, See also Philopseudcs, c, 32,

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 69

SOCRATES,

Socrates is the most eminent of the ancient philosophers*
He lived in the most enlightened age of Greece^ and in Athens^
the most illustrious of her cities. He was bom in the middle
ranks of life^ the son of a sculptor. He was of a mean coun*
tenance, with a snub nose, projecting eyes, and otherwise of an
appearance so unpromising, that a physiognomist, his contem-
porary, pronounced him to be given to the grossest vices. But
he was of a penetrating understanding, the simplest manners,
and a mind wholly bent on the study of moral excellence. He
at once abjured all the lofty pretensions, and the dark and recon-
dite pursuits of the most applauded teachers of his time, and
led those to whom he addressed his instructions from obvious
and irresistible data to the most unexpected and useful conclu-
sions. There was something in his manner of teaching that
drew to him the noblest youth of Athens. I'lato and Xenophon,
two of the most admirable of the Greek writers, were among his
ipupiis. He reconciled in his own person in a surprising degree
poverty with the loftiest principles of independence. He taught
an unreserved submission to the laws of our country. He several
times unequivocally displayed his valour in the field of battle,
while at the same time he kept aloof from public offices and
trusts. The serenity of his mind never forsook him. He was at
all times ready to teach, and never found it difficult to detach
himself from his own concerns, to attend to the wants and wishes
of others. He was uniformly courteous and unpretending ; and,
if at any time he indulged in a vein of playful ridicule, it was
only against the presumptuously ignorant, and those who were
without foundation wise in their own conceit

Yet, with all these advantages and perfections, the name of
Socrates would not have been handed down with such lustre to
posterity but for the manner of his death. He made himself
many enemies. The plainness of his manner and the simplicity
of his instructions were inexpressibly wounding to those (and
they were many), who, setting up for professors, had hitherto en-
deavoured to dazzle their hearers by the loftiness of their claims,
and to command from them implicit submission by the arrogance

70 LIVMS OP TfiB NECROMANCERS,

with which they dictated. It must be surprising to us, that a
man Hke Socrates should be arraigned in a country like Athens
upon a capital accusation. He was charged with instilling
into the youth a disobedience to their duties, and propagating
impiety to the gods, faults of which he was notoriously in-
nocent. But the plot against him was deeply laid, and is said
to have been twenty years in the concoction. And he greatly
assisted the machinations of his adversaries, by the wonderful
firmness of his conduct upon his trial, and his spirited resolution
not to submit to anything indirect and pusillanimous. He
defended himself with a serene countenance and the most cogent
arguments, but would not stoop to deprecation and entreaty.
When sentence was pronounced against him, this did not induce
the least alteration of his conduct. He did not think that a life
which he had passed for seventy years with a clear conscience,
was worth preserving by the sacrifice of honour. He refused to
fescape from prison, when one of his rich friends had already
purchased of the jailor the means of his freedom. And,
during the last days of his Hfe, and when he was waiting the
signal of death, which was to be the return of a ship that had
been sent with sacrifices to Delos, he uttered those admirable
discourses, which have been recorded by Xenophon and Plato
to the latest posterity.

But the question which introduces his name into this volume
is that of what is called the demon of Socrates. He said that
he repeatedly received a divine premonition of dangers impend-
ing over himself and others ; and considerable pains have been
taken to ascertain the cause and author of these premonitions.
Several persons, among whom we may include Plato, have con-
ceived that Socrates regarded himself as attended by a super-
natural guardian, who at all times watched over his welfare and
Concerns.

But the solution is probably of a simpler nature. Socrates,
with all his incomparable excellences and perfections, was not
exempt from the superstitions of his age and country. He had
been bred up among the absurdities of polytheism. In them
were included, as we have seen, a profound deference for the
Responses of oracles, and a vigilant attention to portents and

LIVES OP THE NECROMANCERS. 7!

ftmens. Socrates appears to have been exceedingly regardful
Of omens. Plato tells us that this intimation, which he spoke of
as his demon, never prompted him to any act, but occasionally
interfered to prevent him or his friends proceeding in any-
thing that would have been attended with injurious conse-
quences.* Sometimes he described it as a voice, which no one
however, heard but himself; and sometimes it showed itself in
the act of sneezing. If the sneezing came when he was in doubt
to do a thing or not to do it, it confirmed him ; but if, being
already engaged in any act, he sneezed, this he considered as a
warning to desist. If any of his friends sneezed on his right
hand, he interpreted this as a favourable omen ; but if on his
left, he immediately relinquished his purpose.' Socrates vindi-
cated his mode of expressing himself on the subject by saying
that others, when they spoke of omens, for example, by the voice
of a bird, said the bird told me this, but that he, knowing that
the omen was purely instrumental to a higher power, deemed it
more religious and respectful to have regard only to the higher
power, and to say that God had graciously warned him.3 One
of the examples of this presage was, that, going along a narrow
street with several companions in earnest discourse, he suddenly
stopped, and turned another way, warning his friends to do the
same. Some yielded to him, and others went on, who were en*
countered by the rushing forward of a multitude of hogs, and did
not escape without considerable inconvenience and injury.4 In
another instance, one of a company, among whom was Socrates,
had confederated to commit an act of assassination. Accordingly
he rose to quit the place, saying to Socrates, " I will be back
presently." Socrates, unaware of his purpose, but having re-
ceived the intimation of his demon, said to him earnestly, " Go
not." The conspirator sat down. Again, however, he rose, and
again Socrates stopped him. At length he escaped, without the
observation of the philosopher, and committed the act, for which
he was afterwards brought to trial. When led to execution, he
exclaimed, " This would never have happened to me, if I had

' Theages. « Plutarch, De Genio Socratis.

3 Xenophon, Memorabilia, lib, i, c. i.
* Plutarch, ubi supra^

7^ LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

yielded to the intimation of Socrates."' In the same manner,
and by a similar suggestion, the philosopher predicted the mis-
carriage of the Athenian expedition to Sicily under Nicias,
which terminated with such signal disaster.* This feature in the
character of ^ocrat^s is remarkable, and may show the preva-
lence of superstitious observances, even in persons whom we
might think the most likely to be exempt from this weakness.

ROME.

VIRGIL.

From the Greeks let us turn to the Romans. The earliest
examples to our purpose occur in the ^Eneid. And, though
Virgil is a poet, yet is he so correct a writer that we may well
take for granted that he either records facts which had been
handed down by tradition, or that, when he feigns, he feigns
things strikingly in accord with the manners and belief of the
age of which he speaks.

POLYDORUS,

One of the first passages that occur is of the ghost of the de*
ceased Polydorus on the coast of Thrace. Polydorus, the son of
Priam, was murdered by the king of that country, his host, for
the sake of the treasures he had brought with him from Troy.
He was struck through with darts made of the wood of the
myrtle. The body was cast into a pit, and earth thrown upon
it The stems of myrtle grew and flourished. iEneas, after the
burning of Troy, first attempted a settlement in this place. Near
the spot where he landed he found a hillock thickly set with
mjrrtle. He attempted to gather some, thinking it might form a
suitable screen to an altar which he had just raised. To his
astonishment and horror he found the branches he had plucked
dropping with blood. He tried the experiment again and again.
At length a voice from the mound was heard, exclaiming, " Spare
me ! I am Polydorus f and warning him to fly the blood-stained
and treacherous shore.

' Plato, Theages. » Ibid.

LIVES OF THE NECkOMANCEkS. n

DIDO.
We have a more detailed tale of necromancy, when Dido,
deserted by iEneas, resolves on self-destruction. To delude her
sister as to her secret purpose, she sends for a priestess from the
gardens of the Hesperides, pretending that her object is by ma-
gical incantations again to relumine the passion of love in the
breast of ^Eneas. This priestess is endowed with the power, by
potent verse, to free the oppressed soul from care,'and by similar
means to agitate the bosom with passion which is free from its
empire. She can arrest the headlong stream, and cause the
stars to return back in their orbits. She can call up the ghosts
of the dead. She is able to compel the solid earth to rock, and
the trees of the forest to descend from their mountains. To give
effect to the infernal spell. Dido commands that a funeral pyre
shall be set up in the interior court of her palace, and that the
arms of ^Eneas, what remained of his attire, and the marriage
bed in which Dido had received him, shall be heaped upon it.
The pyre is hung round with garlands, and adorned with branches
of cypress. The sword of i^neas and his picture are added.
Altars are placed round the pyre ; and the priestess, with dis-
hevelled air, calls with terrific charms upon her three hundred
Gods, upon Erebus, Chaos, and the three-faced Hecate. She
sprinkles around the waters of Avernus, and adds certain herbs
that had been cropped by moonlight with a sickle of brass. She
brings with her the excrescence which is found upon the forehead
of a new-cast foal, of the size of a dried fig, and which, unless first
eaten by the mare, the mother never admits her young to the
nourishment of her milk. After these preparations, Dido, with
garments tucked up, and with one foot bare, approached the
altars, breaking over them a consecrated cake, and embracing
them successively in her arms. The pyre was then to be set on
fire ; and, as the different objects placed upon it were gradually
consumed, the charm became complete, and the ends proposed
to the ceremony were expected to follow. Dido assures her
sister that she well knew the unlawfulness of her proceeding,
and protests that nothing but irresistible necessity should have
compelled her to have recourse to these unhallowed arts. She
finally stabs herself, and expires.

U Lives Of the nMci^omancMrs^

ROMULUS,

The early history of Rome is, as might be expected, Interspersed
with prodigies. Romulus himself, the founder, after a prosperous
reign of many years, disappeared at last by a miracle. The king
assembled his army to a general review, when suddenly, in the
midst of the ceremony, a tempest arose, with vivid lightnings
and tremendous crashes of thunder. Romulus became enveloped
in a cloud, and when, shortly after, a clear sky and serene hea-
vens succeeded, the king was no more seen, and the throne upon
which he had sat appeared vacant. The people were somewhat
dissatisfied with the event, and appear to have suspected foul
play. But the next day Julius Proculus, a senator of the highest
character, showed himself in the general assembly, and assured
them that, with the first dawn of the morning, Romulus had
stood before him, and certified to him that the Gods had taken
him up to their celestial abodes, authorising him, withal, to de-
clare to his citizens that their arms should be for ever successful
against all their enemies.'

NUMA,

Numa was the second king of Rome; and, the object of
Romulus having been to render his people soldiers and invincible
in war, Numa, an old man and a philosopher, made it his purpose
to civilize them, and deeply to imbue them with sentiments of
religion. He appears to have imagined the thing best calculated
to accomplish this purpose was to lead them by prodigies and
the persuasion of an intercourse with the invisible world. A
shield fell from heaven in his time, which he caused to be care-
fully kept and consecrated to the gods ; and he conceived no
means so likely to be effectual to this end as to make eleven
other shields exactly like the one which had descended by
miracle, so that, if an accident happened to any one, the Romans
might believe that the one given to them by the divinity was still
in their possession.^

I Livius, lib. i. c. i6.'

!B Dionysius Halicarnassensis.

t/p-^S OF tHB NBCkOMANCERS, 75

Numa gave to his pfeople civil statutes, and a code of obser-i
Vances in matters of religion ; and these also were enforced with
a divine sanction. Numa met the goddess Egferia from time to
time in a cave ; and by her was instructed in the institutions he
should give to the Romans: and this barbarous people, awed by
the venerable appearance of their king, by the sanctity of his
manners, and still more by the divine favour which was so
signally imparted to him, received his mandates with exemplary
reverence, and ever after implicitly conformed themselves to all
that he had suggested.'

TVLLUS HOSTIUVS.
TuUus Hostilius, the third king of Rome, restored again the
policy of Romulus. In his time, Alba, the parent state, was
subdued and united to its more flourishing colony. In the mean
time TuUus, who^during the greater part of his reign had been
distinguished by martial achievements, in the latter part became
the victim of superstitions. A shower of stones fell from
heaven, in the manner, as Livy tells us, of a hail-storm. A
plague speedily succeeded to this prodigy." Tullus, awed by
these events, gave his whole attention to the rites of religion*
Among other things he found in the sacred books of Numa an
account of a certain ceremony, by which, if rightly performed,
the appearance of a god, named Jupiter Elicius, would be con-
jured up. But Tullus, who had spent his best days in the en-
sanguined field, proved inadequate to this new undertaking*
Some defects having occurred in his performance of the magical
ceremony, not only no god appeared at his bidding, but, the
anger of heaven being awakened, a thunderbolt fell on the
palace, and the king, and the place of his abode were consumed
together.3

ACCIUS NAVIUS. •■

In the reign of Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth king of Rome,
another famous prodigy is recorded. The king had resolved to
increase the number of* the Roman cavalry. Romulus had
raised the first body with the customary ceremony of augury*

' Livius, lib. i. c. 19, 21. ' Ibid., lib. i. c. 31. 3 Ibid.

76 UVBS OF THE NMCkOMANCMHS. '

Tarquinius proposed to proceed in the present case, omitting
this ceremony. Accius Navius, the chief augur, protested
against the innovation. Tarquin, in contempt of his inter-
ference, addressed Accius, saying, " Come, augur, consult your
birds, and tell me, whether the thing I have now in my mind
can be done, or cannot be done." Accius proceeded according
to the rules of his art, and told the king it could be done. "What
I was thinking of,'' replied Tarquinius, " was whether you could
cut this whetstone in two with this razor."- Accius immediately
took the one instrument and the other, and performed the pro-
digy in the face of the assembled people.'

S Eli VI US TULLIUS,

Servius TuUius, the sixth king of Rome, was the model of a
disinterested and liberal politician, and gave to his subjects
those institutions to which, more than to any other cause, they
w^ere indebted for their subsequent greatness. Tarquinius sub-
jected nearly the whole people of Latium to his rule, capturing
one town of this district after another. In Cbrniculum, one of
these places, Servius TuUius, being in extreme youth, was made
a prisoner of war, and subsequently dwelt as a slave in the
king's palace. One day as he lay asleep in the sight of many,
his head was observed to be on fire. The bystanders, terrified
at the spectacle, hastened to luring water that they might extin-
guish the flames. The queen forbade their assiduity, regarding
the event as a token from the gods. By and by the boy awoke
of his own accord, and the flames at the same instant disap-
peared. The queen, impressed with the prodigy, became per-
suaded that the youth was reserved for high fortunes, and
directed that he should be instructed accordingly in all liberal
knowledge. In due time he was married to the daughter of
Tarquinius, and was destined in all men's minds to succeed in
the throne, which took place in the sequel.*

In the year of Rome two hundred and ninety-one, forty-seven
years after the expulsion of Tarquin, a dreadful plague broke out
in the city, and carried off both the consuls, the augurs, and a
vast multitude of the people. The following year was distin-

* Livius, lib. i. c. 36. » Livius, lib. i. c. 39.

' LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 77

guished by numerous prodigies ; fires were seen in the heaven^,
and the earth shook, spectres appeared, and supernatural voices
were heard, an ox spoke, and a shower of raw flesh fell in the
fields. Most of these prodigies were not preternatural ; the
speaking ox was probably received on the report of a single
hearer ; and the whole was invested with exaggerated terror by
means of the desolation of the preceding year.*

THE SORCERESS OF VIRGIL.

Prodigies are plentifully distributed through the earlier parts
of the Roman history ; but it is not our purpose to enter into a
chronological detail on the subject. And in reality those already
given, except in the instance of Tullus Hostilius, do not entirely
fall within the scope of the present volume. The Roman poets,
Virgil, Horace, Ovid and Luqan, give a fuller insight than the
Latin prose-writers into the conceptions of their countrymen
upon the subject of incantations and magic.

The eighth eclogue of Virgil, entitled Pharmaceutria, is parti*
cularly to our purpose in this point There is an Idyll of Theo»
critus under the same name ; but it is of an obscurer character ;
and the enchantress is not, like that of Virgil, triumphant in th^
success of her arts.

The sorceress is introduced by Virgil, giving direction to her
female attendant as to the due administration of her charms.
Her object is to recall Daphnis, whom she styles her husband,
to his former love for her. At the same, she says, she will en^
deavour by magic to turn him away from his wholesome sense.
She directs her attendant to burn vervain and frankincense ; and
she ascribes the highest efficacy to the solemn chant, which, she
says, can call down the moon from its sphere, can make the cold-
blooded snake burst in the field, and was the means by which
Circe turned the comp<inions of Ulysses into beasts. She orders
his image to be thrice bound round with fillets of three colours,
and then that it be paraded about a prepared altar, while in bind-
ing the knots the attendant shall still say, " Thus do I bind the
fillets of Venus." One image of clay and one of wax are placed

t Livius, lib. iii, c. 6, ct seqq.

78 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

before the same fire ; and as the image of clay hardens, so does
the heart of Daphnis harden towards his new mistress ; and as
the image of wax softens, so is the heart of Daphnis made tender
towards the sorceress. She commands a consecrated cake to be
broken over the image, and crackling laurels to be burned before
it, that as Daphnis had tormented her by his infidelity, so he in
his turn may be agitated with a returning constancy. She prays
that as the wanton heifer pursues the steer through woods and
glens, till at len^h, worn out with fatigue, she lies down on the
oozy reeds by the banks of the stream, and the night-dew is un-
able to induce her to withdraw, so Daphnis may be led on after
her for ever with inextinguishable love. She buries the relics of
what had belonged to Daphnis beneath her threshold. She
bruises poisonous herbs of resistless virtue which has been
gathered in the kingdom of Pontus, herbs, which enabled him
who gave them to turn himself into a hungry wolf prowling
amidst the forests, to call up ghosts from the grave, and to trans-
late the ripened harvest from the field where it grew to the
lands of another. She orders her attendant to bring out to the
face of heaven the ashes of these herbs, and to cast them over
her head into the running stream, at the same time taking care
not to look behind her. After all her efforts the sorceress be-
gins to despair. She says, " Daphnis heeds not my incantations,
heeds not the gods." She looks again ; she perceives the ashes
on the altar emit sparkles of fire ; she hears her faithful house-
dog bark before the door ; she says, " Can these things be ; or
do lovers dream what they desire? It is not so! The real
Daphnis comes ; I hear his steps ; he has left the deluding town;
he hastens to my longing arms V*

CANWIA,

In the works of Horace occurs a frightful and repulsive, but a
curious detail of a scene of incantation. * Four sorceresses are
represented as assembled, Canidia, the principal, to perform, the
other three to assist in, the concoction of a charm, by means of
which a certain youth, named Varus, for whom Canidia had con-
ceived a passion, but who regards the hag with the utmost con-

, I Epodi V.

LIVBS OF THE NECROMANCERS, 79

tempt, may be made obsequious to her desires. Canidia appears
first, the locks of her dishevelled hair twined round with venom-
ous and deadly serpents, ordering the wild fig-tree and the
funereal cypress to be rooted up from the sepulchres on which
they grew, and these, together with the t%% of a toad smeared
with blood, the plumage of the screech-owl, various herbs brought
from Thessaly and Georgia, and bones torn from the jaws of a
famished dog, to be burned in flames fed with perfumes from
Colchis. Of the assistant witches, one traces with hurried
steps the edifice, sprinkling it, as she goes, with drops from the
Avernus, her hair on her head stiff and erect, like the quills of
the sea-hedge-hog, or the bristles of a hunted boar; and another,
who is believed by all the neighbourhood to have the faculty of
conjuring the stars and the moon down from heaven, contributes
her aid.

But, which is most horrible, the last of the assistant witches is
seen, armed with a spade, and, with earnest and incessant
labour, throwing up earth, that she may dig a trench, in which is
to be plunged up to his chin a beardless youth, stripped of his
purple robe, the emblem of his noble descent, and naked, that,
from his marrow already dry and his liver (when at length his
eye-balls, long fixed on the still renovated food which is with-
held from his famished jaws, have no more the power to dis-
cern), may be concocted the love-potion, from which these hags
promise themselves the most marvellous results,

Horace presents before us the helpless victim of their malice,
already enclosed in the fatal trench, first viewing their orgies
with affright, asking, by the gods who rule the earth and
all the race of mortals, what means the tumult around him }
He then entreats Canidia, by her children if ever she had off-
spring, by the visible evidences of his high rank, and by the
never-failing vengeance of Jupiter upon such misdeeds, to say
why she casts upon him glances befitting the fury of a step-
mother, or suited to a beast already made desperate by the
wounds of the hunter.

At length, no longer exhausting himself in fruitless entreaties,
the victim has recourse in- his agonies to curses on his execu-
tioners. He isays his gho5t ^all haunt them for ever, for no

8o LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

vengeance can expiate such cruelty. He will tear their cheeks
with his fangs, for that power is given to the shades below.
He will sit, a night-mare, on their bosoms, driving away sleep
from their eyes ; while the enraged populace shall pursue them
with stones, and the wolves shall gnaw and howl over their un-
buried members. The unhappy youth winds up all with the
remark that his parents, who will survive him, shall themselves
witness this requital of the sorceresses' infernal deeds.

Canidia, unmoved by these menaces and execrations, com-
plains, of the slow progress of her charms. She gnaws her
fingers with rage. She invokes the night and the moon, be-
neath whose rays these preparations are carried on, now, while
the wild beasts lie asleep in the forests, and while the dogs alone
bay the superannuated letcher, who relies singly on the rich
scents with which he is perfumed for success, to speed her incanta-
tions, and signalise their power beneath the roof of him whose
love she seeks. She impatiently demands why her drugs should
be of less avail than those of Medea, with which she poisoned a
garment, that, once put on, caused Creusa, daughter of the
King of Corinth, to expire in intolerable torments ? She dis-
covers that Varus had hitherto baffled her power by means of
some magical antidote ; and she resolves to prepare a mightier
charm, that nothing from earth or hell shall resist. " Sooner,'*
she says, " shall the sky be swallowed up in the sea, and the
earth be stretched a covering over both, than thou, my enemy,
shalt not be wrapped in the flames of love, as subtle and tena-
cious as those of burning pitch.*'

It is not a little curious to remark the operation of the antago-
nistic principles of superstition and scepticism among the Romans
in this enlightened period, as it comes illustrated to us in the
compositions of Horace on the subject. In the piece, the con-
tents of which have just been given, things are painted in all
the solemnity and terror which is characteristic of the darkest
ages. But, a few pages further on, we find the poet in a mock
Palinodia deprecating the vengeance of the sorceress, who, he
says, has already sufficiently punished him by turning through
her charms his flaxen hair to hoary white, and overwhelming
him by day and night with ceaseless anxieties. He feels him-

' LIVES OP thm Necromancers. st

S6lf through her powerful magic tortured, like Hercules in the
envenomed shirt of Nessus, or as if he were cast down into the
flames of ^tna ; nor does he hope that she will cease com-
pounding a thousand deadly ingredients against him, till his
very ashes shall have been scattered by the resistless winds.
He offers therefore to expiate his offence at her pleasure either
by a sacrifice of an hundred oxen, or by a lying ode, in which
her chastity and spotless manners shall be applauded to the
skies.

What Ovid gives is only a new version of the charms and
philtres of Medea.*

ERICHTHO,

Lucan, in his Pharsalia," takes occasion, immediately beford
the battle which was to decide the fate of the Roman world, to
introduce Sextus, the younger son of Pompey, as impatient to
inquire, even by the most sacrilegious means, into the important
events which are immediately impending. He is encouraged in
the attempt by the reflection that the soil upon which they aire
now standing, Thessaly, had been notorious for ages as the
noxious and unwholesome seat of sorcery and witchcraft. The
poet, therefore, embraces this occasion to expatiate on the
various modes in which this detested art was considered as dis-
playing itself. And, however he may have been ambitious to
seize this opportunity to display the wealth of his imagination,
the whole does not fail to be curious, as an exhibition of the
system of magical power so far as the matter in hand is con-
cerned.

The soil of Thessaly, says the poet, is in the utmost degree
fertile in poisonous herbs, and her rocks confess the power of
the sepulchral song of the magician. There a vegetation
springs up of virtue to compel the gods ; and Colchis itself im-
ports from Thessaly treasures of this sort which she cannot
boast as her own. The chaunt of the Thessalian witch pene-
trates the furthest seat of the gods, and contains words s6
powerful, that not the care of the skies, or of the revolving

! ' Metamorphoses) lib* vii. " Lib, vi.

6a LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

spheres, can avail as an excuse to the deities to decliiie its
force. Babylon and Memphis yield to the superior might ; and
the gods of foreign climes fly to fulfil the dread behests of the
inagician.

Prompted by Thessalian song, love glides into the hardest
hearts ; and even the severity of age is taught to burn with
youthful fires. The ingredients of the poisoned cup, nor the ex-
crescence found on the forehead of the new-cast foal, can rival
in efficacy the witching incantation. The soul is melted by its
single force. The heart which not all the attractions of the
genial bed could fire, nor the influence of the most beautiful
form, the wheel of the sorceress shall force from its bent

But the effects are perhaps still more marvellous that are pro-
duced oh inanimate and unintellectual nature. The eternal suc-
cession of the world is suspended ; day delays to rise on the
earth ; the skies no longer obey their ruler. Nature becoines
still at the incantation : and Jove, accustomed to guide the
machine, is astonished to find the poles disobedient to his im-
pulse. Now the sorceress deluges the plains with rain, hides the
face of heaven with murky clouds, and the thunders roll, un-
bidden by the thunderer. Anon she shakes her hair, and the
Sarkness is dispersed, and the whole horizon is cleared. At one
time the sea rages, urged by no storm ; and at another is smooth
ks glass, in defiance of the tempestuous north. The breath of
ihe enchanter carries along the bark in the teeth of the wind ;
the headlong torrent is suspended, and rivers run back to their
source. The Nile overflows not in the summer ; the crooked
Meander shapes to itself a direct course ; the sluggish Arar
gives new swiftness to the rapid Rhone ; and the mountains
bow their heads to their foundations. Clouds shroud the peaks
of the cloudless Olympus ; and the Scythian snows dissolve,
unurged by the sun. The sea, though impelled by the tempestu-
ous constellations, is counteracted by witchcraft, and no longer
bests along the shore. Earthquakes shake the solid globe ; and
the affrighted inhabitants behold both hemispheres at once. The
animals most dreaded for their fury, and whose rage is mortal,
become tame j the hungry tiger and the lordly lion fawn at the
sorceress's feetj the snake untwines all her folds amidst the

LIirBS OF THE NBCRX)MANCERS\ 83

snow ; the viper, divided by wounds, unites again its severed
parts ; and the envenomed serpent pines and dies under the
power of a breath more fatal than his own.

What, exclaims the poet, is the nature of the compulsion thus
exercised on the gods, this obedience to song and to potent
herbs, this fear to disobey and scorn the enchanter ? Do they
yield from necessity, or is it a voluntary subjection ? Is it the
piety of these hags that obtains the reward, or by menaces do
they secure their purpose ? Are all the gods subject to this con-
trol, or is there one god upon whom it has power, who, himself
compelled, compels the elements ? The stars fall from heaven
at their command. The silver moon yields to their execrations,
and bums with a smouldering flame, even as when the earth
comes between her and the sun, and by its shadow intercepts its
rays ; thus is the mooii brought lower and more low, till she
covers with her froth the herbs destined to receive her malighanf
influence.

But Erichtho, the witch of the poet, flouts all these arts, as
too poor and timid for her purposes. She never allows a roof
to cover her horrid head, or confesses the influence of the house-
hold gods. She inhabits the deserted tomb, and dwells in a
grave from which the ghost of the dead has been previously
expelled. She knows the Stygian abodes, and the counsels
of the infernals. Her countenance is lean ; and her com-
plexion overspread with deadly paleness. Her hair is neglected
and matted. But when clouds and tempests obscure the stars,
then she comes forth, and defies the midnight lightning
Whierever she treads, the fruits of the earth become withered,
and the wholesome air is poisoned with her breath. * She offers
no prayers, and pours forth no supplications ; she has recourse
to no divination. She delights to profane the sacred altar with
a funereal flame, and pollutes the incense with a torch from the
pyre. The gods yield at once to her voice, nor dare to provoke
her to a second mandate. She incloses the living man within
the confines of the grave ; she subjects to sudden death those
who were destined to a protracted age ; and she brings back to
life the corses of the dead. She snatches the smoking cinders,
and the bones whitened with flame, from the midst of the pile,

6—2

84 UVns OF THE NECROMANCERS.

and wrests the torch from the hand of the mourning parent:
She seizes the fragments of the burning shroud, and the embers
yet moistened with blood. But, where the sad remains are
already hearsed in marble, it is there that she most delights to
exercise her sacrilegious power. She tears the limbs of the
dead, and digs out their eyes. She gnaws their fingers. She
separates with her teeth the rope on the gibbet, and tears away
the murderer from the cross on which he hung suspended. She
applies to her purposes the entrails withered with the wind, and
the marrow that had been dried by the sun. She bears away
the nails which had pierced the hands and feet of the criminal,
the clotted blood that had distilled from his wounds, and the
sinews that had held him suspended. She pounces upon the body
of the dead in the battle-field, anticipating the vulture and the
beast of prey ; but she does not divide the limbs with a knife,
nor tear them asunder with her hands : she watches the approach
of the wolf, that she may wrench the morsels from his hungry
jaws. Nor does the thought of niurder deter her, if her rites
require the living blood, first spurting from the lacerated throat.
She drags forth the foetus from its pregnant mother, by a
passage which violence has opened. Wherever there is occasion
for a bolder and more remorseless ghost, with her own hand
she dismisses him from life ; man at every period of existence
furnishes her with materials. She drags away the first down
from the cheek of the stripling, and with her left hand cuts the
favourite. lock from the head of the young man. Often she
watches with seemingly pious care the dying hours of a relative,
and seizes the occasion to bite his lips, to compress his wind-
pipe, and whisper in his expiring organ some message to the
infernal shades.

Sextus, guided by the general fame of this woman, sought her
in her haunts. He chose his time, in the depth of the night,
when the sun is at its lowermost distance from the upper sky.
He took his way through the desert fields. He took for com-
panions the associates, the accustomed ministers of his crimes.
Wandering among broken graves and crumbling sepulchres, they
discovered her^ sitting subUme on a ragged >ock, where Mount
Hsemus stretches its roots to the Pharsalic field. She was

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 85

mumbling channs of the Magi and the magical gods. For she
feared that the war might yet be transferred to other than the
Emathian fields. The sorceress was busy therefore enchanting
the soil of Philippi, and scattering on its surface the juice of
potent herbs, that it might be heaped with carcasses of the dead,
and saturated with their blood, that Macedon, and not Italy,
might receive the bodies of departed kings and the bones of the
noble, and might be amply peopled with the shades of men,
Her choicest labour was as to the earth where should be de-
posited the prostrate Pompey, or the limbs of the mighty
Caesar.

Sextus approached, and bespoke her thus : " Oh, glory ot
Hsemonia, that hast the power to divulge the fates of men, or
canst turn aside fate itself from its prescribed course, I pray
thee to exercise thy gift in disclosing events to come. Not the
meanest of the Roman race am I, the offspring of an illustrious
chieftain, lord of the world in the one case, or in the other the
destined heir to my father's calamity. I stand on a tremendous
and giddy height: snatch me from this posture of doubt ; let me
not blindly rush on, and blindly fall ; extort this secret from the
gods, or force the dead to confess what they know."

To whom the Thessalian crone replied: "If you ask^d to
change the fate of an individual, though it were to restore an old
man, decrepid with age, to vigorous youth, I could comply ; but
to break the eternal chain of causes and consequences exceeds
even our power. You seek, however, only a foreknowledge of
events to come, and you shall be gratified. Meanwhile it were
best, where slaughter has afforded so ample a field, to select the
body of one newly deceased, and whose flexible organs shall be
yet capable of speech, not with lineaments abready hardened in
the sun."

Saying thus, Erichtho proceeded (having first with her art
made the night itself more dark, and involved her head in a
pitchy cloud), to explore the field, and examine one by one the
bodies of the unburied dead. As she approached, the wolves
fled before her, and the birds of prey, unwillingly sheathing their
talons, abandoned their repast, while the Thessalian witch,
searching into th^ vital parts of the frames before her, at length

86 UVES OF TffE NECROMANCERS,

fixed on one whose lungs were uninjured, and whose oi^^s of
speech had sustained no wound. The fate of many hung \a
doubt, till she had mad^ her selection. Had the revival of whole
armies been her will, armies would have stood up obedient to her
bidding. She passed a hook beneath the jaw of the selected
one, and, fastening it to a cord, dragged him along over rocks
and stones, till she reached a cave, overhung by a projecting
ridge. A gloomy fissure in the ground was there, of a depth
almost reaching to the infernal gods, where the yew-tree spread
thick its horizontal branches, at all times excluding the light of
the sun. Fearful and withering shade was there, and noisome
slime cherished by the livelong night. The air was heavy and
flagging as that of the Taenarian promontory ; and hither the
god of hell permits his ghosts to extend their wanderings. It is
doubtful whether the sorceress called up the dead to attend her
here, or herself descended to the abodes of Pluto. She put on
a fearful and variegated robe ; she covered her face with her
dishevelled hair, and bound her brow with a wreath of vipers.

Meanwhile she observed Sextus afraid, with his eyes fixed on
the ground, and his companions trembling ; and thus she re-
proached them. " Lay aside," she said, " your vainly-conceived
terrors ! You shall behold only a living and a human figure,
whose accents you may listen to with perfect security. If this
alarms you, what would you say if you should have seen the
Stygian lakes, and the shores burning with sulphur unconsumed^
if the Furies stood before you, and Cerberus with his mane of
vipers, and the Giants chained in eternal adamant ? Yet all
these you might have witnessed unharmed ; for all these would
quail at the terror of my brow.'*

She spoke, and next plied the dead body with her arts. She
supples his wounds, and infuses fresh blood into his veins: she
frees his scars from the clotted gore, and penetrates them with
froth from the moon . She mixes whatever nature has engendered
in its most fearful caprices, foam from the jaws of a mad dog,
the entrails of the lynx, the backbone of the hyena, and the
marrow of a stag that had dieted on serpents, the sinews of the
remora, and the eyes of a dragon, the eggs of the eagle, the fly-
ing serpent of Arabia^ the viper that guards the pearl in the Red

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 87

Sea, the slough of the hooded snake, and the ashes that remain
when th<9 phoenix has been consumed. To these she adds all
venom that has a name, the foliage of herbs over which she has
sung her charms, and on which she had voided her rheum as
they grew.

At length she chaunts her incantation to the Stygian Gods, in
a voice compounded of all discords, and altogether alien to
human organs. It resembles at once the barking of a dog, and
the howl of a wolf ; it consists of the hooting of the screech-
owl, the yelling of a ravenous wild beast, and the fearful hiss of
a serpent. It borrows somewhat from the roar of tempestuous
waves, the hollow rushing of the winds among the branches ot
the forest, and the tremendous crash of deafening thunder.

" Ye Fijries," she cries, " and dreadful Styx, ye sufferings of
the damned, and Chaos, for ever eager to destroy the fair har-
mony of worlds, and thou, Pluto, condemned to an eternity of
ungrateful existence. Hell, and Elysium, of which no Thessalian
witch shall partake, Proserpine, for ever cut off from thy health-
giving mother, and horrid Hecate, Cerberus curst with incessant
hunger, ye Destinies, and Charon endlessly murmuring at the
task I inipose of bringing back the dead again to the land of th^
living, hear me ! — if I call on you with a voice sufficiently im-
pious and abominable, if I have never sung this chaunt, un sated
with human gore, if I have frequently laid on your altars the fruit
of the pregnant mother, bathing its contents with the reeking
brain, if I have placed on a dish before you the head and en-
trails of an infant on the point to be bom —

" I ask not of you a ghost, already a tenant of the Tartarean
abodes, and long familiarised to the shades below, but one who
has recently quitted the light of day, and who yet hovers over
the mouth of hell: let him hear these incantations, and immedi-
ately after descend to his destined place ! Let him articulate
suitable omens to the son of his general, having so late been him-
self a soldier of the great Pompey ! Do this, as you love the
very sound and rumour of a civil war !"

Saying this, behold, the ghost of the dead man stood erect
before her, trenibling at the vie\y of his own unanimated limbs,
and loth to enter again the confines of his wonted prison. He

98 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

shrinks to invest himself with the gored bosom, and the fibres
from which death had separated him. Unhappy wretch, to
whom death had not given the privilege to die ! Erichtho, im-
patient at the unlocked for delay, lashes the unmoving corpse
with one of her serpents. She calls anew on the powers of hell,
and threatens to pronounce the dreadful name, which cannot be
articulated without consequences never to be thought of, nor
without the direst necessity to be ventured upon.

At length the congealed blood becomes liquid and warm ; it
oozes from the wounds, and creeps steadily along the veins and
the members ; the fibres are called into action beneath the gelid
breast, and the nerves once more become instinct with life.
Life and death are there at once. The arteries beat ; ^the
muscles are braced ; the body raises itself, not by degrees, but
at a single impulse, and stands erect. The eyehds unclose.
The countenance is not that of a living subject, but of the dead.
The paleness of the complexion, the rigidity of the lines, re-f
main ; and he looks about with an unmeaning stare, but utters
no sound. He waits on the potent enchantress.

** Speak P said she ; ** and ample shall be your reward. You
shall not again be subject to the arr of the magician. I will com-^
mit your members to such a sepulchre ; I will bum your form
with such wood, and will chaunt such a charm over your funeral
pyre, that all incantations shall thereafter assail you in vain. Be
it enough, that you have once been brought back to life 1 Tri-?
pods, and the voice of oracles deal in ambiguous responses ;
but the voice of the dead is perspicuous and certain to him who
receives it wi^h an unshrinking spirit. Spare not ! Give names
to things ; give places a clear designation ; speak with a full and
articulate voice."

. Saying this, she added a further spell, qualified to give to him
who was to answer, a distinct knowledge of that respecting
v/hich he was about to be consulted. He accordingly delivers
the responses demanded of him ; and, that done, earnestly re-
quires of the witch to be dismissed. Herbs and magic rites are
necessary, that the corpse may be again unanimated, and the
spirit never more be liable to be recalled to the realms of day.
The sorceress constructs the fu^eral pile \ th^ dead man places

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 89

himself thereon ; Erichtho applies the torch ; and the charm is
for ever at an end.

Lucan in this passage is infinitely too precise, and exhausts
his muse in a number of particulars, where he had better have
been more succinct and select. He displays the prolific exube-
rance of a young poet, who bad not yet taught himself the multi-
plied advantages of compression. He had not learned the
principle, Relinquere quae desperat tractata nitescere posset But,
as this is the fullest enumeration of the forms of witchcraft that
occurs in the writers of antiquity, it seemed proper to give it to
the reader entire.

: SERTORIUS.

The story of Sertorius and his hind, which occurred about
thirty years beforcj may not be improperly introduced here. It
is told by Plutarch in the spirit of a philosopher, and as a mere
deception played by that general, to render the barbarous people
of Spain more devoted to his service. But we must suppose
that it had, at least for the time, the full effect of something pre^
ternatural. Sertorius was one of the most highly gifted and
well-balanced characters that is to be found in Roman story.
He considered with the soundest discernment the nature of the
persons among whom he was to act, and conducted himself ac-
cordingly. The story in Plutarch is this.

*' So soone as Sertorius arriued from Africa, he straight leauied
men of warre, and with them subdued the people of Spaine
fronting upon his marches, of which the more part did willingly
submit themselues, upon the bruit that ran of him to be merci-
full and courteous, and a valiant man besides in present danger.
Furthermore, he lacked no fine deuises and subtilties to win
their goodwils: as among others, the policy, and deuise of the
hind. There was a poore man of the countrey called Spanus,
who meeting by chance one day with a hind in his way that had
newly calued, flying from the hunters, he let the damme go, not
being able to take her ; and running after her calfe tooke it,
which was a young hind, and of a strange haire, for she was all

J Hor^t., De Arte Poetica, v. isc>;

90 LIVMS OF THE NECROMANCERS.

milk-white. It chanced so, that Sertorius was at that time in
those parts. So,thispoore man presented Sertorius with hisyoung
hind, which he gladly receiued, and which with time he made so
tame, that she would come to him when he called her, and
follow him whereeuer he went, being nothing the wilder for tl^e
daily sight of such a number of armed souldiers together as they
were, i^or yet afraid of the noise and tumult of the campe. In-
somuch as Sertorius by little and little made it a miracle, making
the simple barbarous people beleeue that it was a gift that Dian^
had sent him, by the which she ma^e him understand of many
and sundrie things to come: knowing well inough of himselfe,
that the barbg-rous people were men easily deceiued, and quickly
caught by any subtill superstition, besides that by art also he
brought them to beleeue it as a thing verie true. For when he
h^d any secret intelligence giuen him, that the enemies would
inuade some part of the countries and prouinces subject vnto
him, or that they h^d taken any of his forts from him by any in-
telligence or sudden attempt, he straight told them that his hind
spake to him as he slept, and had warned him both to arme his
men, and put himselfe in strength. In like manner if he had
heard any newes that one of his lieutenants had wonne a battell,
or that he had any aduantage of his enemies, he would hide the
messenger, and bring his hind abroad with a garland and coUer
of nospgayes; and then say, it was a token of some good newes
comming towards him, perswading them withall to be of good
cheare ; and so did sacrifice to the gods, to giue them thankes
for the good tidings he should heare before it were long. Thus
by putting this superstition into their heades, he made them the
more tractable and obedient to his will, in so much as they
thought they were not now gouemed any more by a stranger
wiser than themselues, but were steadfastly perswaded that they
were rather led by some certaine god.'*— —

" Now was Sertorius very heauie, that no man could tell him
what was become of his white hind: for thereby all his subtilltie
and finenesse to keepe the barbarous people in obedience was
taken away, and then specially when they stood in need of most
comfort. But by good hap, certaine of his souldiers that had
\^%\ themselves in the night, met with the hind in their way, and

UVi^-S OF THE NECROMANCERS, 91

knowing her by her colour, tooke her and brought her ba^cke
^gaine. Sertorius hearing of herj promised them a good re-
ward, so that they would tell no liuing creature that they brought
her againe, and thereupon made her to be secretly kept. Then
within a few dayes aftqr, he came abroad among then^, and with
^ pleasant countenance told the noble men and chiefe captained
of these barbarous people, how the gods had reuealed it to him
in his dreame,that he should shortly haue a maruellous good thing
happen to him: and with these lyords sate downe in his chaire to
giue audience. Whereupon they that kept the hind not farre
from thence, did secretly let her go. The hind being loose, whei^
she had spied Sertorius, ranne straight to his chaire with great
joy, and put her head betwixt his legges, and layed her mouth in
his right hand, as she before was wont to do. Sertorius also
made very much of her, and of purpose appeared maruellous
glad, shewing much tender affection to the hind, as it seemed
the water stood in his eyes for joy. The barbarous people that
stood there by and beheld the same, at the first were muqh
amazed therewith, but afterwards when they had better be-
thought themselues, for ioy they clapped their hands together,
and waited upon Sertorius to his lodging with great and ioyfuU
shouts, saying, and steadifastly beleeuing, that he Avas a heavenly
creature, and belpued of the gods.''^

CASTING OUT DEVILS,
We are now brought down to the era of the Christian religion:
and there is repeated mention of sorcery in the books of the New
Testament.

One of the most frequent miracles recorded of Jesus Christ is
called ^e "casting out devils." The Pharisees in the Evange-
list, for the purpose of depreciating this evidence of his divine
mission, are recorded to have said, " This fellow doth not cast
out devils, but by Beelzebub, the prince of devils.** Jesus, among
other remarks in refutation of this opprobrium, rejoins upon
, them, " If I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your
children cast them out V*^ Here then we have a plain insinuation
of sorcery froni the lips of Christ himself, at the same time that
» Plutarch, North's Translation, . .^ » Matt, c. xii, v. 84,37,

92 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

he appears to admit that his adversaries produced supematura
achievements similar to his own.

SIMON MAGUS.

But the most remarkable passage in the New Testament on
the subject of sorcery, is one which describes the proceedings of
Simon Magus, as follows.

" Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached
Christ unto them. But there was a certain man, called Simon,
which before time in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched
the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great
one. To whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest,
saying, * This iiian is the great power of God.' And to him they
had regard, because that of long time he had bewitched them
with sorceries. But, when they believed Philip, preaching the
things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus
Christ, they were baptized both men and women. Then Simon
himself believed also. And, when he was baptised, he continued
with Philip, and wondered, beholding the miracles and signs
which were done.

" Now, when the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that
Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter
and John. Who, when they were come down, prayed for them,
that they might receive the Holy Ghost. For as yet he was
fallen upon none of them: only they were baptized in the name
of the Lord Jesus. Then laid they their hands on them, and
they received the Holy Ghost.

"And, when Simon saw that, through the laying on of the
apostles' hands, the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them
money, saying, * Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I
lay hands he may receive the Holy Ghost.' But Peter said unto
him, ' Thy money perish with thee ! because thou hast thought
that the gift of God might be purchased with money. Thou
hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not
right in the sight of God. Repent therefore of this thy wicked-
ness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thy heart may be
forgiven thee: for I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitter-
ness, and in the bond of iniquity.' Then answered Simon, and

Ut^ES OF TME NECkOMANCEkS. 9S

Skid, * Pray ye to the Lord for me, that none of these things
which ye have spoken come upon me.' ''*

This passage of the New Testament leaves us in considerable
uncertainty as to the nature of the sorceries, by which "of a long
time Simon had bewitched the people of Samaria." But the
fathfers of the church, Clemens Romanus and Anastasitis Sinaita,
have presented us with a detail of the wonders he actually per-
formed. When and to whom he pleased he made himself in-
visible ; hie created a man out of air ; he passed through rocks
and mountains without encountering an obstacle ; he threw him-
self from a precipice uninjured ; he flew along in the air ; he
flung himself in the fire without being burned. Bolts and chains
were impotent to detain him. He animated statues, so that they
appeared to every beholder to be men and women ; he make all
the furniture of the house and the table to change places as re-
quired, without a visible mover ; he metamorphosed his counte-
nance and visage into that of another person ; he could make
himself into a sheep, or a goat, or a serpent ; he walked through
the streets attended with a multitude of strange figures, which he
affirmed to be the souls of the departed ; he made trees and
branches of trees suddenly to spring up where he pleased ; he
set up and deposed kings at will ; he caused a sickle to go into
a field of corn, which unassisted would mow twice as fast as the
most industrious reaper.*

Thus endowed, it is difficult to imagine what he thought he
would have gained by purchasing from the apostles their gift of
working miracles. But Clemens Romanus informs us that he
complained that, in his sorceries, he was obliged to employ
tedious ceremonies and incantations ; whereas the apostles ap-
peared to effect their wonders without difficulty and effort, by
barely speaking a word.3

ELYMAS, THE SORCERER.
But Simon Magus is not the only magician spoken of in the

* Acts, c. viii.

3 Clemens Romanus, Recognitiones, lib. ii. cap. 9. Anastasius Sinaita,
Quaestiones ; Quaestio 20.
3 Clemens Romanusj Constitutiones Apostolici, lib. vi» cap. 7.

94 LIVES OF TtiB NECkOMANCEk^,

New Testament. When the apostle Paul came to Paphos in the
isle of Cyprus, he found the Roman governor divided in his pre-
ference between Paul and Elymas, the sorcierer, who before the
governor withstood Paul to his face. Then Paul, prompted by
his indignation, said, " Oh, full of all subtlety and mischief, child
of the devil, enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not ceas^ to
pervert the right ways of the Lord ? And now, behold, the hand
of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the
sun for a season." What wonders Elymas effected to deceive
the Roman governor we are not told: but " immediately there
fell on him a mist and a darkness ; and he went about, seeking '
some to lead him by the hand.*'*

In another instance we find certain vagabond Jews, exorcists,
who pretended to cast out devils from the possessed. But they
came to the apostle, and " confessed and shewed their deeds.
Many of thein also which used curious arts brought their books
together, and burned them before all. And they counted the
price of them, and found it fifly thousand pieces of silver."* .

It is easy to see, however, on which side the victory lay, The
apostles by their devotion and the integrity of their proceedings
triumphed : while those whose only motive was selfishness, the
applause of the vulgar, or the admiration of the superficial, gained
the honours of a day, and were then swept away into the gulf
of general oblivion.

NEkO.
The arts of the magician are said to hav6 been called into
action by Nero upon occasion of the assassination of his
toother, Agrippina. He was visited with occasional fits of the
deepest remorse in the recollection of his enormity. Notwith-
standing all the ostentatious applauses and congratulations
which he obtained from the senate, the army and the people, he
complained that he was perpetually haunted with the ghost of
his mother, and pursued by the Furies with flaming torches and
whips. He therefore caused himself to be attended by magi-
cians, who employed their arts to conjure up the shade of
Agrippina, and to endeavour to obtain her forgiveness for the
» Acts, c. xiii. ■ Ibid, c* xix.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, ' 9^

crime perpetrated by her son.* We are not Informed of the suc-
cess of their evocations.

VESPASIAN.

In the reign of Vespasian we meet with a remarkable record
of supernatural power, though it does not strictly fall under the
head of magic. It is related by both Tacitus and Suetonius.
Vespasian having taken up his abode for some months at Alex-
andria, a blind man, of the common people, came to hirti,
earnestly entreating the emperor to assist in curing his infirmity,
alleging that he was prompted to apply by the admonition of the
god Serapis, and importuning the prince to anoint his cheeks and
the balls of his eyes with the royal spittle. Vespasian at first
treated the supplication with disdain ; but at length, moved by
the fervour of the petitioner, inforced as it was by the flattery of
his courtiers, the emperor began to think that everything would
give way to his prosperous fortune, and yielded to the poor
man's desire. With a confident carriage, therefore, the multi-
tude of those who stood by being full of expectation, he did as
he was requested, and the desired success immediately fol-
lowed. Another supplicant appeared at the same tinie, who
had lost the use of his hands, and entreated Vespasian to
touch the diseased members with his foot ; dnd he also was
cured."

Hume has remarked that many circunistances contribute to
give authenticity to this miracle, " if," as he says, ** any evidence
could avail to establish so palpable a falsehood. The gravity,
solidity, age and probity of so great an emperor, who, through
the whole course of his life, conversed in a familiar manner with
his friends and courtiers, and never affected any airs of divinity ;
the historian, a contemporary writer, noted for candour and
veracity, and perhaps the greatest and most penetrating genius
of all antiquity : and lastly, the persons from whose authority
he related the miracle, who we may presume to have been of es-
tablished character for judgment and honour ; eye-witnesses of
the fact, and confirming their testimony, as Tacitus goes on to

' Suetonius, lib. vi., cap. 14.

' Tacitus, Historisa, lib. iv., cap. 81. Suetonius, lib. viii., cap.

96 LIP'E^ OP THE NECROMANCERS.

say, after the Flavian family ceased to be in power, and could no
longer give any reward as the price of a lie."*

APOLLONWS OF TYANA.
Apollonius of Tyana, in Asia Minor, was born nearly at the
same time as Jesus Christ, and acquired great reputation while
he lived, and for a considerable time after. He was born of
wealthy parents, and seems early to have betrayed a passion for
philosophy. His father, perceiving this, placed him at fourteen
years of age under Euthydemus, a rhetorician of Tarsus ; but
the youth speedily became dissatisfied with the indolence and
luxury of the citizens, and removed himself to ^Egas, a neigh-
bouring town, where was a temple of iEsculapius, and where the
god was supposed sometimes to appear in person. Here he
became professedly a disciple of the sect of Pythagoras. He
refrained from animal food, and subsisted entirely on fruits and
herbs. He went barefoot, and wore no article of clothing made
from the skins of animals.^ He further imposed on himself a
noviciate of five years silence. At the death of his fatherj he
divided his patrimony equally with his brother; and, that brother
having wasted his estate by prodigality, he again made an equal
division with him of what remained.3 He travelled to Babylon
and Susa in pursuit of knowledge, and even among the Brah-
mans of India, and appears particularly to have addicted him-
self to the study of magic.4 He was of a beautiful countenance
and a commanding figure, and, by means of these things, com-
posed and striking carriage, and much natural eloquence, ap-
pears to have won universal favour wherever he went. He is
said to have professed the understanding of all languages with-
out learning them, to read the thoughts of men, and to be able to
interpret the language of animals. A power of working miracles
attended him in all places. s

On one occasion he announced to the people of Ephesus tb«
approach of a terrible pestilence ; but the citizens paid no at-

z Hume, Essays, part iii. section Xi
■ Philostratus, Vita ApoUonii, lib. 1., cap. 5, 6.
3 Ibid., lib, i„ c, lo. * Ibid, c* 13.

5 Ibid, c. 13, 14.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 97

tention to his prophecy. The calamity, however, having over-
taken them, they sent to ApoUonius who was then at Smyrna,
to implore his assistance. He obeyed the summons. Having
assembled the inhabitants, there was seen among them a poor,
old, and decrepid beggar, clothed in rags, hideous of visage, and
with a peculiarly fearful and tremendous expression in his eyes.
ApoUonius called out to the Ephesians, " This is an enemy to
the gods ; turn all your animosity against him, and stone him to
death !'' The old man in the most piteous tones besought their
mercy. The citizens were shocked with the inhumanity of the
prophet. Some, however, of the more thoughtless flung a few
stones, without any determined purpose. The old man, who had
stoodhitherto crouching, and with his eyes half-closed, now erected
his figure, and cast on the crowd glances, fearful, and indeed
diabolical. The Ephesians understood at once that this was the
genius of the plague. They showered upon him stones without
mercy, so as not only to cover him, but to produce a considerable
mound where he had stood. After a time ApoUonius commanded
them to take away the stones, that they might discover what sort
of an enemy they had destroyed. Instead of a man they now
saw an enormous black dog, of the size of a lion, and whose
mouth and jaws were covered with a thick envenomed froth.*

Another miracle was performed by ApoUonius in favour of a
young man, named Menippus of Corinth, five and twenty years
of age, for whom the prophet entertained a singular favour.
This man conceived himself to be beloved by a rich and beauti-
ful woman, who made advances to him, and to whom he was on
the point of being contracted in marriage. ApoUonius warned
his young friend against the match in an enigmatical way, teU-
ing him that he nursed a sepent in his bosom. This, however,
did not deter Menippus. All things were prepared ; and the
wedding table was spread. ApoUonius, meanwhile, came among
them, and prevented the calamity. He told the young man that
the dishes before him, the wine he was drinking, the vessels of
gold and silver that appeared around him, and the very guests
themselves were unreal and illusory ; and to prove his words, he
caused them immediately to vanish. The bride alone was re-
' Philostratus, lib. iv. c. 10.

1

98 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

fractory. She prayed the philosopher not to torment her, and
not to compel her to confess what she was. He was, however,
inexorable. She at length owned that she was an empuse (a
sort of vampire), and that she had determined to cherish and
pamper Menippus, that she might in the conclusion eat his
flesh, and lap up his blood.^

One of the miracles of ApoUonius consisted in raising the
dead. A young woman of beautiful person was laid out upon a
bier, and was in the act of being conveyed to the tomb. She
was followed by a multitude of friends, weeping and lamenting,
and among others by a young man to whom she had been on
the point to be married, Apollonius met the procession, and
commanded those who bore it to set down the bier. He ex-
horted the proposed bridegroom to dry up his tears. He en-
quired the name of the deceased, and, saluting her accordingly
took hold of her hand, and murmured over her certain mystical
words. At this act the maiden raised herself on her seat, and
presently returned home, whole and sound, to the house of her
father.2

Towards the end of his life Apollonius was accused before
Domitian of having conspired with Nerva to put an end to the
reign of the tyrant. He appears to have proved that he was at
another place, and therefore could not have engaged in the con-
spiracy that was charged upon him. Domitian publicly cleared
him from the accusation, but at the same time required him not
to withdraw from Rome till the emperor had first had a private
conference with him. To this requisition Apollonius replied in
the most spirited terms. " I thank your majesty," said he, " for
the justice you have rendered me. But I cannot submit to
what you require. How can I be secure from the false accusa-
tions of the unprincipled informers who infest your court ? It
is by their means that whole towns of your empire are un-
peopled, that provinces are involved in mourning and tears,
your armies are in mutiny, your senate full of suspicion and
alarms, and the islands are crowded with exiles. It is not for
myself that I speak, my soul is invulnerable to your enmity ;
and it is not given to you by the gods to become master of my
Philostratus, lib. iv. c. 25, ;. « Ibid. c. 45.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 99

body." And, having thus given utterance to the virtuous an-
guish of his spirit, he suddenly became invisible in the midst ot
a full assembly, and was immediately after seen at Puteoli in the
neighbourhood of Mount Vesuvius.^

Domitian pursued the prophet no further ; and he passed
shortly after to Greece, to Ionia, and finally to Ephesus. He
everywhere delivered lectures as he went, and was attended
with crowds of the most distinguished auditors, and with the
utmost popularity. At length at Ephesus, when he was in the
midst of an eloquent harangue, he suddenly became silent He
seemed as if he saw a spectacle which engrossed all his atten-
tion. His countenance expressed fervour and the most deter-
mined purpose. He exclaimed, " Strike the tyrant ; strike him !"
and immediately after, raising himself, and addressing the as-
sembly, he said, ** Domitian is no more ; the world is delivered
of its bitterest oppressor."— The next post brought the news
that the emperor was killed at Rome, exactly on the day and at
the hour when Apollonius had. thus made known the event at
Ephesus.*

Nerva succeeded Domitian, between whom and Apollonius
there subsisted the sincerest friendship. The prophet, however,
did not long survive this event. He was already nearly one
hundred years old. But what is most extraordinary, no one
could tell precisely when or where he died. No tomb bore the
record of his memory ; and his biographer inclines to the
opinion that he was taken up into heaven.3

Divine honours were paid to this philosopher, both during his
life, and after his death. The inhabitants of Tyana built a
temple to him, and his image was to be found in many other
temples.4 j The Emperor Adrian collected his letters, and treated
them as an invaluable relic. Alexander Severus placed his statue
in his oratory, together with those of Jesus Christ, Abraham and
Orpheus, to whom he was accustomed daily to perform the cere-
monies of religion.5 Vopiscus, in his ** Life of Aurelian,"^ relates
that this emperor had determined to rase the city of Tyana, but that

1 Philostratus, lib. viii, c.5. » Yov^^ c. 26.

3 Ibid. c. 29, 30. 4 Ibid. c. 29.

5 Lampridius, iu Vita Alex, Seven, c. 29. * C, 24,

joo LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

ApoUonius, whom he knew from his statues, appeared to him,
and said, " Aurelian, if you would conquer, do not think of the
destruction of my citizens : Aurelian, if you would reign, abstain
from the blood of the innocent : Aurelian, if you would con-
quer, distinguish yourself by acts of clemency." It was at the
desire of Julia, the mother of Severus, that Philostratus com-
posed the life of ApoUonius, to which he is now principally in-
debted for his fame.*

The publicity of ApoUonius and his miracles has become con-
siderably greater, from the circumstance of the early enemies of
the Christian religion having instituted a comparison between
the miracles of Christ and of this celebrated philosopher, for
the obvious purpose of undermining one of the most consider-
able evidences of the truth of divine revelation. It was prob-
ably with an indirect view of this sort that Philostratus was in-
cited by the Empress Julia to compose his life of this philo-
sopher; and Hierocles, a writer of the time of Dioclesian,
appears to have penned an express treatise in the way of a
parallel between the two, attempting to show a decisive supe-
riority in the miracles of ApoUonius.

APULEIUS,

Apuleius of Madaura in Africa, who lived in the time of the
Antonines, appears to have been more remarkable as an author,
than for anything that occurs in the history of his life. St.
Augustine and Lactantius, however, have coupled him with
ApoUonius of Tyana, as one of those who for their pretended
miracles were brought into competition with the author of the
Christian reUgion. But this seems to have arisen from their mis-
apprehension respecting his principal work, the " Golden Ass,"
which is a romance detailing certain wonderful transformations,
and which they appear to have thought was intended as an
actual history of the life of the author.

The work, however, deserves to be cited in this place, as giving
a curious representation of the ideas which were then prevalent
on the subject of magic and witchcraft. The author in the

z Philostratus, lib. i. c. 3.

Lives op the necromancers. loi

course of his narrative says : " When the day began to dawn, I
chanced to awake, and became desirous to know and see some
marvellous and strange things, remembering that I was now in
the midst of Thessaly, where, by the common report of the
world, sorceries and enchantments are most frequent. I viewed
the situation of the place in which I was ; nor was there any
thing I saw, that I believed to be the same thing which it ap-
peared. Insomuch that the very stones in the street I thought
were men bewitched and turned into that figure, and the birds I
heard chirping, the trees without the walls, and the running
waters, were changed from human creatures into the appearances
they wore. I persuaded myself that the statues and buildings
could move, that the oxen and other brute beasts could speak
and tell strange tidings, and that I should see and hear oracles
from heaven, conveyed on the beams of the sun."

ALEXANDER 7 HE PAPHLAGONIAN,

At the same time with Apuleius lived Alexander the Paphla-
gonian of whom so extraordinary an account is transmitted to
us by Lucian. He was the native of an obscure town, called
Abonotica, but was endowed with all that ingenuity and cunning
which enables men most effectually to impose upon their fellow-
creatures. He was tall of stature, of an impressive aspect, a
fair complexion, eyes that sparkled with an awe-commanding
fire, as if informed by some divinity, and a voice to the last
degree powerful and melodious. To these he added the graces
of carriage and attire. Being bom to none of the goods of for-
tune, he considered with himsdf how to turn these advantages to
the greatest account ; and the plan he fixed upon was that of
instituting an oracle entirely under his own direction. He began
at Chalcedon on the Thracian Bosphorus ; but, continuing but a
short time there^ he used it principally as an opportunity for pub-
lishing that ^sculapius, with Apollo, his father, would in no long
time fix his residence at Abonotica. This rumour reached the
fellow-citizens of the prophet, who immediately began to lay the
foundations of a temple for the reception of the god. In due
time Alexander made his appearance ; and he so well managed
his scheme, that> by means of spies and emissaries whom he

103 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

scattered in all directions, he not only collected applications to
his prophetic skill from the different towns of Ionia, Cilicia, and
Galatia, but presently extended his fame to Italy and Rome.
For twenty years scarcely any oracle of the known world could
vie with that of Abonotica ; and the Emperor Aurelius himself
is said to have relied for the success of a military expedition
upon the predictions of Alexander the Paphlagonian.

Lucian gives, or pretends to give, an account of the manner
in which Alexander gained so extraordinary a success. He says,
that this young man in his preliminary travels, coming to Pella
in Macedon, found that the environs of this city were distin-
guished from perhaps all other parts of the world, by a breed of
serpents of extraordinary size and beauty. Our author adds
that these serpents were so tame, that they inhabited the houses
of the province, and slept in bed with the children. If you trod
upon them, they did not turn again, or show tokens of anger, and
they sucked the breasts of the women to whom it might be of
service to draw off their milk. Lucian says, it was probably one
of these serpents that was found in the bed of Olympias, and
gave occasion to the tale that Alexander the Great was begotten
by Jupiter under the form of a serpent. The prophet bought
the largest and finest serpent he could find, and conveyed it
secretly with him into Asia. When he came to Abonotica, he
found the temple that was built surrounded with a moat ; and he
took an opportunity privately of sinking a goose-egg, which he
had first emptied of its contents, inserting instead a young ser-
pent just hatched, and closing it again with great care. He then
told his fellow-citizens that the god was arrived, and hastening to
the moat, scooped, up the tgg in an egg-cup in presence of the
whole assembly. . He next broke the shell, and shewed the young
serpent, that twisted about his fingers in presence of the admir-
ing multitude. After this he suffered several days to elapse, and
then, collecting crowds from every part of Paphlagonia, he ex-
hibited himself, as he had previously announced he should do,
with the fine serpent he had brought from Macedon twisted in
coils about the prophet's neck, and its head hid under his arm-
pit, while a head artfully formed with linen, and bearing some
resemblance to a human face, protruded itself, and passed for

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 103

the head of the reptile. The spectators were beyond measure
astonished to see a little embryo serpent, grown in a few days to
so magnificent a size, and exhibiting the features of a human
countenance.

Having thus far succeeded, Alexander did not stop here. He
contrived a pipe which passed seemingly into the mouth of the
animal, while the other end terminated in an adjoining room,
where a man was placed unseen, and delivered the replies which
appeared to come from the mouth of the serpent. This imme-
diate communication with the god was reserved for a few favoured
suitors, who bought at a high price the envied distinction.

The method with ordinary inquirers was for them to com-
municate their requests in writing, which they were enjoined to
roll up and carefully seal ; and these scrolls were returned to
them in a few days, with the seals apparently unbroken, but with
an answer written within, strikingly appropriate to the demand
that was preferred. — It is further to be observed, that the mouth
of the serpent was occasionally opened by means of a horsehair
skilfully adjusted for the purpose, at the same time that by
similar means the animal darted out its biforked tongue to the
terror of the amazed bystanders.

REVOLUTION PRODUCED IN THE] HISTORY OF NECRO-
MANCY AND WITCHCRAFT UPON THE ESTABLISHMENT
OF CHRISTIANITY.

It is necessary here to take notice of the great revolution that
took place under Constantino, nearly three hundred years after
the death of Christ, when Christianity became the established
religion of the Roman empire. This was a period which pro-
duced a new era in the history of necromancy and witchcraft.
Under the reign of polytheism, devotion was wholly unrestrained
in every direction it might chance to assume. Gods known and
unknown, the spirits of departed heroes, the gods of heaven and
hell, abstractions of virtue or vice, might unblamed be made the
objects of religious worship. Witchcraft therefore, and the in-
vocation of the spirits of the dead, might be practised with
toleration ; or at all events were not regarded otherwise than as
venial deviations from the religion of the state.

104 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

It is true, there must always have been a horror of secret arts,
especially of such as were of a maleficent nature. At all times
men dreaded the mysterious power of spells and incantations,
of potent herbs and nameless rites, which were able to control
the eternal order of the planets, and the voluntary operations of
mind, which could extinguish or recal life, inflame the passions
of the soul, blast the works of creation, and extort from invi-
sible beings and the dead the secrets of futurity. But under the
creed of the unity of the divine nature the case was exceedingly
different. Idolatry, and the worship of other gods than one,
were held to be crimes worthy of the utmost abhorrence and the
severest punishment. There was no medium between the wor-
ship of heaven and hell. All adoration was to be directed to
God the Creator through the mediation of his only begotten
Son ; or, if prayers were addressed to inferior beings, and the
glorified spirits of his saints, at least they terminated in the
Most High, were a deprecation of his wrath, a soliciting his
favour, and a homage to his omnipotence. On the other hand,
sorcery and witchcraft were sins of the blackest dye. In oppo-
sition to the one only God, the creator of heaven and earth, was
the " prince of darkness," the " prince of the power of the air,"
who contended perpetually against the Almighty, and sought to
seduce his creatures and his subjects from their due allegiance.
Sorcerers and witches were supposed to do homage and sell
themselves to the devil, than which it was not in the mind of man
to conceive a greater enormity, or a crime more worthy to cause
its perpetrators to be exterminated from the face of the earth.
The thought of it was of power to cause the flesh of man to
creep and tingle with horror: and such as were prone to indulge
their imaginations to the utmost extent of the terrible, found a
perverse delight in conceiving this depravity, and were but too
much disposed to fasten it upon their fellow-creatures.

MAGICAL CONSULTATIONS RESPECTING THE LIFE OF
THE EMPEROR,

It was not within the range of possibility, that such a change
should take place in the established religion of the empire as
that from Paganism to Christianity, without convulsions and

LIVES OF THE MECkOMANCEkS. 165

vehement struggle. The prejudices of mankind on a subject so
nearly concerned with their dearest interests and affections must
inevitably be powerful and obstinate ; and the lucre of the priest-
hood, together with the strong hold they must necessarily have
had on the weakness and superstition of their flocks, would tend
to give force and perpetuity to the contention. Julian, a man of
great ability and unquestionable patriotism, succeeded to the
empire only twenty-four years after the death of Constantine ;
and he employed the most vigorous measures for the restoration
of the ancient religion. But the reign of Julian was scarcely
more than eighteen months in duration: and that of Jovian, his
successor, who again unfurled the standard of Christianity,
lasted hardly more than half a year. The state of things bore
a striking similarity to'that of England at the time of the Pro-
testant Reformation, where the opposite faiths of Edward the
Sixth and his sister Mary, and the shortness of their reigns, gave
preternatural keenness to the feelings of the parties, and insti-
gated them to hang with the most restless anticipation upon the
chances of the demise of the sovereign, and the consequences,
favourable or unfavourable, that might arise from a new accession.
The joint reign of Valentinian and Valens, Christian emperors,
had now lasted several years, when information was conveyed to
these princes, and particularly to the latter, who had the rule of
Asia, that numerous private consultations were held as to the
duration of their authority, and the person of the individual who
should come after them. The succession of the Roman empire
was elective ; and consequently there was almost an unlimited
scope for conjecture in this question. Among the various modes
of inquiry that were employed, we are told that the twenty-four
letters of the alphabet were artificially disposed in a circle, and
that a magic ring, being suspended over the centre, was con-
ceived to point to the initial letters of the name of him who
should be the future emperor, Theodorus, a man of most emi-
nent qualifications, and high popularity, was put to death by the
jealousy of Valens, on the vague evidence that this kind of trial
had indicated the early letters of his name.^ It may easily be

' Zosimus, lib. iv. cap. 13. Gibbon observes, that the name of Theodosiiis,
who actually succeeded, begins with the same letters which were indicated in
this ma^ic trial:

lo6 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

imagined, that, where so restless and secret an investigation was
employed as to the successor that fate might provide, conspiracy
would not always be absent. Charges of this sort were perpetu-
ally multiplied ; informers were eager to obtain favpur or rewards
by the disclosures they pretended to communicate; and the
Christians, who swayed the sceptre of the state, did not fail to
aggravate the guilt of those who had recourse to these means
for satisfying their curiosity, by alleging that demons were called
up from hell to aid in the magic solution. The historians of
these . times no doubt greatly exaggerate the terror and the
danger, when they say that the persons apprehended on such
charges in the great cities outnumbered the peaceable citizens
who were left unsuspected, and that the military who had charge
of the prisoners complained that they were wholly without the
power to restrain the flight of the captives, or to control the
multitude of partisans who insisted on their immediate release.*
The punishments were barbarous and indiscriminate ; to be
accused was almost the same thing as to be convicted ; and
those were obliged to hold themselves fortunate, who escaped
with a fine that in a manner swallowed up their estates.

HISTORY OF NECROMANCY IN THE EAST
From the countries best known in what is usually styled
ancient history, in other words from Greece and Rome, and the
regions into which the spirit of conquest led the people of Rome
and Greece, it is time we should turn to the East, and those re-
moter divisions of the world which to them were comparatively
unknown.

With what has been called the religion of the Magi, of Egypt,
Persia and Chaldea, they were indeed superficially acquainted ;
but for a more familiar and accurate knowledge of the East we
are chiefly indebted to certain events of modern history ; to the
conquests of the Saracens, when they possessed themselves of
the North of Africa, made themselves masters of Spain, and
threatened in their victorious career to subject France to their
standard ; to the [crusades ; to the spirit of nautical discovery
which broke out in the close of the fifteenth century ; and more

' Zosimus, lib. iv. cap. 14.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 107

recently to the extensive conquests and mighty augmentation of
territory which have been realised by the English East India
Company.

The religion of Persia was that of Zoroaster and the Magi.
When Ardshir, or Artaxerxes, the founder of the race of the
Sassanides, restored the throne of Persia in the year of Christ
226, he called together an assembly of the Magi from all parts
of his dominions, and they are said to have met to the number
of eighty thousand.^ These priests, from a remote antiquity,
had to a great degree preserved their popularity, and had re-
markably adhered to their ancient institutions.

They seem at all times to have laid claim to the power of sus-
pending the course of nature, and producing miraculous pheno-
mena. But in so numerous a body there must have been some
whose pretensions were of a more moderate nature, and others
who displayed a loftier aspiration. The more ambitious we find
designated in their native language by the name of Jogees^ of
the same signification as the 'LdXmjuncti,

Their notions of the Supreme Being are said to have been of the
highest and abstrusest character, as comprehending every pos-
sible perfection of power, wisdom and goodness, as purely spi-
ritual in his essence, and incapable of the smallest variation and
change, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. Such as they
apprehended him to be, such the most perfect of their priests
aspired to make themselves. They were to put off all human
weakness and frailty ; and, in proportion as they assintilated, or
rather became one with the Deity, they supposed themselves to
partake of his attributes, to become infinitely wise and powerful
and good. Hence their claim to suspend the course of nature,
and to produce miraculous phenomena. For this purpose it was
necessary that they should abstract themselves from every thing
mortal, have no human passions or partialities, and divest them-
selves as much as possible of all the wants and demands of our
material frame. Zoroaster appears indeed to have preferred
morality to devotion, to have condemned celibacy and fasting,
and to have pronounced that " he who sows the ground with

* Gibbon, chap, viii, ° This word is of Sanscrit original.

lo4 LI^ES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

diligence and care, acquires a greater stock of religious merit
than he who should repeat ten thousand prayers." But his followers
at least did not abide by this decision. They found it more prac-
ticable to secure to themselves an elevated reputation by severe
observances, rigid self-denial, and the practice of the most incon-
ceivable mortifications. This excited wonder and reverence and
a sort of worship from the bystander, which industry and bene-
volence do not so assuredly secure. They therefore in frequent
instances lacerated their flesh, and submitted to incredible hard-
ships. They scourged themselves without mercy, wounded their
bodies with lancets and nails,^ and condemned themselves to re-
main for days and years unmoved in the most painful attitudes.
It was no unprecedented thing for them to take their station
upon the top of a high [pillar ; and some are said to have con-
tinued in this position, without ever coming down from it, for
thirty years. The more they trampled under foot the universal
instincts of our nature, and showed themselves superior to its
infirmities, the nearer they approached to the divine essence, and
to the becoming one with the Omnipresent. They were of con-
sequence the more sinless and perfect ; their will became the will
of the Deity, and they were in a sense invested with, and be-
came the mediums of the acts of, his power. The result of all
this is, that they who exercised the art of magic in its genuine
and unadulterated form, at all times applied it to purposes of
goodness and benevolence, and that their interference was uni-
formly the signal of some unequivocal benefit, either to mankind
in general, or to those individuals of mankind who were best
entitled to their aid. It was theirs to succour virtue in distress,
and to interpose the divine assistance in cases that most loudly
and unquestionably called for it.

Such, we are told, was the character of the pure and primitive
magic, as it was handed down from the founder of their religion*
It was called into action by the JogeeSj men who, by an extra-
ordinary merit of whatever sort, had in a certain sense rendered
themselves one with the Deity. But the exercise of magical
power was too tempting an endowment, not in some cases to be

' " They cut themselves with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out
upon them."— I Kings, xviii. 28i

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 109

liable to abuse. Even as we read of the angels in heaven, that
not all of them stood, and persevered in their original sinless-
ness and integrity, so of the Jogees some, partaking of the divine
power, were also under the direction of a will celestial and divine,
while others, having derived, we must suppose, a mighty and
miraculous power from the gift of God, afterwards abused it by
applying it to capricious, or, as it should seem, to malignant
purposes. This appears to have been every where essential to
the history of magic. If those who were supposed to possess it
in its widest extent and most astonishing degree, had uniformly
employed it only in behalf of justice and virtue, they Vould
indeed have been regarded as benefactors, and been entitled to
the reverence and love of mankind. But the human mind is
always prone to delight in the terrible. No sooner did men en-
tertain the idea of what was supernatural and uncontrollable, than
they began to fear it and to deprecate its hostility. They appre-
hended they knew not what, of the dead returning to life, of in-
visible beings armed with the power and intention of executing
mischief, and of human creatures endowed with the prerogative
of bringing down pestilence- and slaughter, of dispensing wealth
and poverty, prosperity and calamity at their pleasure, of causing
health and life to waste away by insensible, but sure degrees, of
producing lingering torments, and death in its most fearful form.
Accordingly it appears that, as there were certain magicians who
were as gods dispensing benefits to those who best deserved it,
so there were others, whose only principle of action was caprice,
and against whose malice no innocence and no degree of virtue
would prove a defence. As the former sort of magicians were
styled y ogees, and were held to be the deputies and instruments
of infinite goodness, so the other sort were named Ku-J ogees,
that is, persons who, possessing the same species of ascendancy
over the powers of nature, employed it only in deeds of malice
and wickedness.

In the meantime, these magicians appear to have produced
the wonderful effects which drew to them the reverence of the
vulgar, very frequently by the intervention of certain beings of a
nature superior to the human, who should seem, though ordi-
narily invisible, to have had the faculty of rendering themselves

no LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

visible when they thought proper, and assuming what shape they
pleased. These are principally known by the names of Peris,
Dives,^ and Gins, or Genii. Richardson, in the preface to his
Persian Dictionary, from which our account will principally be
taken, refers us to what he calls a romance, but from which he
appears to derive the outline of his Persian mythology. In this
romance Kahraman, a mortal, is introduced in conversation with
Simurgh, a creature partaking of the nature of a bird and a
griffon, who reveals to him the secrets of the past history of the
earth. She tells him that she has lived to see the world seven
times peopled with inhabitants of so many different natures, and
seven times. depopulated, the former inhabitants having been so
often removed, and giving place to their successors. The beings
who occupied the earth previously to man, were distinguished into
the Peris and the Dives ; and, when they no longer possessed
the earth in chief, they were, as it should seem, still permitted,
in an airy and unsubstantial form, and for the most part invisibly,
to interfere in the affairs of the human race. These beings
ruled the earth during seventy-two generations. The last
monarch, named Jan bin Jan, conducted himself so ill, that God
sent the angel Haris to chastise him. Haris, however, became
intoxicated with power, and employed his prerogative in the most
reprehensible manner. God therefore at length created Adam,
the first of men, crowning him with glory and honour, and giving
him dominion over all other earthly beings. He commanded
the angels to obey him ; but Haris refused, and the Dives
followed his example. The rebels were for the most part sent
to hell for their contumacy ; but a part of the Dives, whose dis-
obedience had been less flagrant, were reserved, and allowed for
a certain term to walk the earth, and by their temptations to put
the virtue and constancy of man to trial. Henceforth the human
race was secretly surrounded by invisible beings of two species,
the Peris, who were friendly to man, and the Dives, who exer-
cised their ingenuity in involving them in error and guilt. The
Peris were beautiful and benevolent, but imperfect and offending
beings ; they are supposed to have borne a considerable resem-
blance to the Fairies of the western world. The Dives were

' Otherwise, Deeves.

LIVES OF THB NECROMANCERS, in

hideous in form, and of a malignant disposition. The Peris
subsist wholly on perfumes, which the Dives, being of a grosser
nature, hold in abhorrence. This mythology is said to have
been unknown in Arabia till long after Mahomet: the only in-
visible beings we read of in their early traditions are the Gins,
which term, though now used for the most part as synonymous
with Dives, originally signified nothing more than certain in-
fernal fiends of stupendous power, whose agency was hostile to
man.

There was perpetual war between the Peris and the Dives,
whose proper habitation was Kaf, or Caucasus, a line of moun-
tains which was supposed to reach round the globe. In these
wars the Peris generally came off with the worst ; and in that
case they are represented in the traditional tales of the East as
applying to some gallant and heroic mortal to reinforce their
exertions. The warriors who figure in these narratives appear all
to have been ancient Persian kings. Tahmuras, one of the most
celebrated of them, is spoken of as mounting upon Simurgh,
surrounded with talismans and enchanted armour, and furnished
with a sword, the dint of which nothing could resist. He pro-
ceeds to Kaf, or Ginnistan, and defeats Arzshank, the chief of
the Dives, but is defeated in turn by a more formidable compe*-
titor. The war appears to be carried on for successive ages with
alternate advantage and disadvantage, till after the lapse of
centuries Rustan kills Arzshank, and Unally reduces the Dives
to a subject and tributary condition. In all this there is a great
resemblance to the fables of Scandinavia ; and the Northern
and the Eastern world seem emulously to have contributed
their quota of chivalry and romance, of heroic achievements
and miraculous events, of monsters and dragons, of amulets and
enchantment, and all those incidents which most rouse the imagi-
nation, and are calculated to instil into generous and enterpris-
ing youth a courage the most undaunted and invincible.

GENERAL SILENCE OF THE EAST RESPECTING
INDIVIDUAL NECROMANCERS.

Asia has been more notorious than perhaps any other division
of the globe for the vast multiplicity and variety of its narratives

112 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

of sorcery and magic. I have, however, been much disappointed
in the thing I looked for in the first place, and that is, in the in-
dividual adventures of such persons as might be supposed to
have gained a high degree of credit and reputation for their skill
in exploits of magic. Where the professors are many (and they
have been, perhaps, nowhere so numerous as those of magic in
the East), it is unavoidable but that some should have been more
dexterous than others, more eminently gifted by nature, more
enthusiastic and persevering in the prosecution of their purpose,
and more fortunate in awakening popularity and admiration
among their contemporaries. In the instances of Apollonius
Tyanaeus and others among the ancients, and of Cornelius
Agrippa, Roger Bacon and Faust among the moderns, we are
acquainted with many biographical particulars of their lives, and
can trace with some degree of accuracy their peculiarities of
disposition, and observe how they were led gradually from one
study and one mode of action to another. But the magicians of
the East, so to speak, are mere abstractions, not characterised
by any of those habits which distinguish one individual of the
human race from another, and having those marking traits and
petty Hneaments which make the person, as it were, start up into
life while he passes before our eyes. They are merely reported
to us as men prone to the producing great signs and wonders,
ftnd nothing more.

Two of the most remarkable exceptions that I have found to
this rule, occur in the examples of Rocail, and of Hakem, other-
wise called Mocanna.

ROCAIL,
The first of these, however, is scarcely to be called an ex-
ception, as lying beyond the limits of all credible history.
Rocail is said to have been the younger brother of Seth, the son
of Adam. A Dive, or giant of Mount Caucasus, being hard
pressed by his enemies, sought as usual among the sons of men
for aid that might extricate him out of his difficulties. He at
length made an alliance with Rocail, by whose assistance he
arrived at the tranquillity he desired, and who in consequence
became his grand vizier, or prime minister. He governed the

UVns OP THB NnCROMANCBRS, 113

dominions of his principal for many years with great honour
and success ; but ultimately, perceiving the approaches of old
age and death, he conceived a desire to leave behind him a
monument worthy of his achievements in policy and war. He
accordingly erected, we are not told by what means, a magni-
ficent palace, and a sepulchre equally worthy of admiratiom
But what was most entitled to notice, he peopled this palace
with statues of so extraordinary a quality, that they moved and
performed all the functions and offices of living men, so that
every one who beheld them would have believed that they were
actually informed with souls, whereas in reality all they did was
by the power of magic, in consequence of which, though they
were in fact no more than inanimate matter, they were enabled
to obey the behests, and perform the will) of the persons by
whom they were visited.^

hajcem, otherwise mocanna,

Hakem was a leader in one of the different divisions of the
followers of Mahomet To inspire the greater awe into the
minds of his supporters, he pretended that he was the Most
High God, the creator of heaven and earth, under one of the
different forms by which he has in successive ages become in-
carnate, and made himself manifest to his creatures. He dis-
tinguished himself by the peculiarity of always wearing a thick
and impervious veil, by which, according to his followers, he
covered the dazzling splendour of his countenance, which was so
great that no mortal could behold it and live, but that, accord*
ing to his enemies, only served to conceal the hideousness of his
features, too monstrously deformed to be contemplated without
horror. One of his miracles, which seems the most to have
been insisted on, was that he nightly, for a considerable space
of time, caused an orb, something like the moon, to rise from a
sacred well, which gave a light scarcely less splendid than the
day, that diffused its beams for many miles around. His fol-
lowers were enthusiastically devoted to his service, and he sup-
ported his authority unquestioned for a number of years. At
length a more formidable opponent appeared, and after several
» D'Herbdot, Biblioth^que Orientale.

8

tf4 LIVES OP T^n I^ECMMANCMS.

battles he became obliged to shut himself up in a strong f oifres^.-
Here, however, he was so straitly besieged as to 6e driven*
to the last despair, and, having administered poison to his whole
garrison, he prepared a bath of the most powerful ingredients,
which, when he threw himself into it, dissolved his framej even
to the very bones, so that nothing remained of him but a lock of
his hair. He acted thus with the hope that it would be believed
that he was miraculously taken up into heaven ; nor did this fail
to be the effect on the great body of his adherents.^

ARABIAN NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS,
The most copious record of stories of Asiatic enchantment
that we possess, is contained in the "Arabian Nights' Entertain-
ments ;" to which we may add the " Persian Tales," and a few
other repositories of Oriental adventures. It is true that these
are delivered to us in a garb of fiction ; but they are known to
present so exact a picture of Eastern manners and customs, and
so just a delineation of the follies, the weaknesses and credulity
of the races of men that figure in them, that, in the absence of
materials of a strictly historical sort of which we have to com-
plain, they may not inadequately supply the place, and may fur-
nish us with a pretty full representation of the ideas of sorcery
and magic which for centuries were entertained in this part of
the world. They have, indeed, one obvious defect, which it is
proper the reader should keep constantly in mind. The myth-
ology and groundwork of the whole is Persian : but the nar-
rator is for the most part a Mahometan. Of consequence the
ancient Fire-worshippers, though they contribute the entire
materials, and are therefore solely entitled to our gratitude
and deference for the abundant supply they have furnished to
our curiosity, are uniformly treated in these books with disdain
and contumely as unworthy of toleration, while the comparative
upstart race of the believers in the Koran are held out to us as
the only enlightened and upright among the sons of men.

Many of the matters most currently related among these
supernatural phenomena are tales of transformation. A lady
has two sisters of the most profligate and unprincipled characten
> D'Herfcelot, Bibliothfeque Orientale.

LIVES OF THE NECliOMAl^CEkS. ti^

They have originally the same share of the paternal inheritance
as herself. But they waste it in profusion and folly, while she
improves her portion by good judgment and frugality. Driven
to the extremity of distress, they humble themselves, and apply
to her for assistance. She generously imparts to them the same
amount of wealth they originally possessed, and they are once
more reduced to poverty. This happens again and again. At
length, finding them incapable of discretion, she prevails dn
them to come and live with her. By wearisome and ceaseless
importunity they induce her to embark in a mercantile enter-
prise. Here she meets with a prince, who had the misfortune to
be born in a region of fire-worshippers, but was providentially
educated by a Mahometan nurse. Hence, when his countrymen
were by divine vengeance all turned into stones, he alone was
saved alive. The lady finds him in this][situation, endowed.with
sense and motion amidst a petrified city, and they immediately
fall in love with each other. She brings him away from this
melancholy scene, and together they go on board the vessel which
had been freighted by herself and her sisters. But the sisters
become envious of her good fortune, and conspire, while she and
the prince are asleep, to throw them overboard. The prince is
drowned ; but the lady with great difficulty escapes. She finds
herself in a desert island, not far from the place where she had
originally embarked on her adventure ; and, having slept off the
fatigues she had encountered, beholds on her awaking a black
woman with an agreeable countenance, a fairy, who leads in her
hand two black bitches coupled together with a cord. These black
bitches are the lady's sisters, thus metamorphosed, as a punish-
ment for their ingratitude and cruelty. The fairy conveys her
through the air to her own house in Bagdad, which she finds
well stored with all sorts of commodities, and delivers to her the
two animals, with an injunction that she is to whip them every
day at a certain hour as a further retribution for their crimes.
This was accordingly punctually performed ; and, at the end of
each day's penance, the lady, having before paid no regard to
the animals' gestui'es and pitiable cries, wept over them, took
them in her arms, kissed them, and carefully wiped the moisture
from their eyes. Having persevered for a length of time in this

8-2

x»6 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

discipline, the offenders are finally, by a counter incantation,
restored to their original forms, being, by the severities they had
suffered, entirely cured of the vices which had occasioned their
calamitous condition.

Another story is of a calender, a sort of Mahometan monk,
with one eye, who had originally been a prince. He had con-
tracted a taste for navigation and naval discoveries ; and, in one
of his voyages, having been driven by stress of weather into un-
known seas, he suddenly finds himself attracted towards a vast
mountain of loadstone, which first, by virtue of the iron and
nails in the ship, draws the vessel towards itself, and then, by its
own intrinsic force, extracts the nails, so that the ship tumbles to
pieces, and every one on board is drowned. The mountain, on
the side towards the sea, is all covered with nails which had
been drawn from vessels that previously suffered the same
calamity ; and these nails at once preserve and augment the
fatal power of the mountain. The prince only escapes ; and he
finds himself in a desolate island, with a dome of brass, sup-
ported by brazen pillars, and on the top of it a horse of brass,
and a rider of the same metal. This rider the prince is fated
to throw down, by means of an enchanted arrow, and thus
to dissolve the charm which had been fatal to thousands.
From the desolate island he embarked on board a boat, with
a single rower, a man of metal, and would have been safely
conveyed to his native country, had he not inadvertently
pronounced the name of God, that he had been warned not
to do, and which injunction he had observed many days.
On this the boat immediately sunk ; but the prince was pre-
served, who comes into a desolate island, where he finds but one
inhabitant, a youth of fifteen. This youth is hid in a cavern, it
having been predicted of him that he should be killed after fifty
days, by the man that threw down the horse of brass and his
rider. A great friendship is struck up between the unsuspecting
youth and the prince, who nevertheless fulfils the prediction,
having by a pure accident killed the youth on the fiftieth day.
He next arrives at a province of the main land, where he visits
a castle, inhabited by ten very agreeable young men, each blind
of the right eye. He dwells with them for a month, and finds,

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 117

after a day of pleasant entertainment, that each evening theydo
penance in squalidness and ashes. His curiosity is greatly ex-
cited to obtain an explanation of what he saw, but this they
refuse, telling him at the same time, that he may, if he pleases,
pass through the same adventure as they have done, and, if he
does, wishing it may be attended with a more favourable issue.
He determines to make the experiment ; and by their direction,
after certain preparations, is flown away with through the air by
a roc, a stupendous bird, that is capable in the same manner of
carrying off an elephant By this means he is brought to a
castle of the most extraordinary magnificence, inhabited by
forty ladies of exquisite beauty. With these ladies he lives for
eleven months in a perpetual succession of delights. But in the
twelfth month they tell him that they are obliged to leave him
till the commencement of the new year. In the mean time they
give him for his amusement the keys of one hundred apart-
ments, all but one of which he is permitted to open. He is
delighted with the wonders of these apartments till the last day.
On that day he opens the forbidden room, where the rarity that
most strikes him is a black horse of admirable shape and ap-
pearance, with a saddle and bridle of gold. He leads this horse
into the open air, and is tempted to mount him. The horse first
stands still ; but at length, being touched with a switch, spreads
a pair of wings which the prince had not before perceived, and
mounts to an amazing height in the air. The horse finally de-
scends on the terrace of a castle, where he throws his rider, and
leaves him, having first dashed out his right eye with a sudden
swing of his tail. The prince goes down into the castle, and to his
surprise finds himself in company with the ten young men, blind
of one eye, who had Jpassed through the same adventure as he
had done, and all been betrayed by means of the same infirmity.

PERSIAN TALES,

These two stories are from the "Arabian Nights :*' the two follow-
ing are from the " Persian Tales."— Fadlallah, king of Mousel,
contracted an intimacy with a young dervise, a species of Turkish
friar, who makes a vow of perpetual poverty. The dervise, to
ingratiate himself the more with the prince, informed him of a

Xi8 LiyES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

secret he possessed, by means of a certain incantation, of pro-
jecting his soul into the body of any dead animal he through
proper.

To convince the king that this power was no empty boast, he
offered to quit his own body, and animate that of a doe, which
Fadlallah had just killed in hunting. He according executed what
he proposed, took possession of the body of the doe, displayed
the most surprising agility, approached the king, fawning on
him with every expression of endearment, and then, after
various bounds, deserting the limbs of the animal, and repos-
sessing his own frame, which during the experiment had lain
breathless on the ground. Fadlallah became earnest to possess
the secret of the dervise ; and, after some demurs, it was com-
municated to him. The king took possession of the body of the
doe ; but his treacherous confident no sooner saw the limbs of
Fadlallah stretched senseless on the ground, than he conveyed
his own spirit into them, and, bending his bow, sought to destroy
the life of his defenceless victim. The king by his agility
escaped; and the dervise, resorting to the palace, took possession
of the throne, and of the bed of the queen, Zemroude, with
whom Fadlallah was desperately'enamoured. The first precau-
tion of the usurper was to issue a decree that all the deer within
his dominions should be killed, hoping by this means to destroy
the rightful sovereign. But the king, aware of his danger, had
deserted the body of the doe, and entered that of a dead night-
ingale that lay in his path. In this disguise he hastened to the
palace, and placed himself in a wide-spreading tree, which grew
immediately before the apartment of Zemroude. Here he
poured out his complaints and the grief that penetrated his
soul in such melodious notes, as did not fail to attract the atten-
tion of the queen. She sent out her bird-catchers to make captive
the little warbler ; and Fadlallah, who desired no better, easily
suffered himself to be made their prisoner. In this new position
he demonstrated by every gesture of fondness his partiality to
the queen ; but if any of her women approached him, he pecked
at them in anger, and, when the impostor made his appearance,
could not contain the vehemence of his rage. It happened one
night that the queen's lap-dog died ; and the thought struck

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 119

Fadlallah that he would animate the corpse of this animal. The
next morning Zemroude found her favourite bird dead in his
cage, and immediately became inconsolable. Never, she said,
was so amiable a bird ; he distinguished her from all others ;
he seemed even to entertain a passion for her ; and she felt as
if she could not survive his loss. The dervise in vain tried every
expedient to console her. At length he said, that, if she pleased,
he would cause her nightingale to revive every morning, and
entertain her with his tunes as long as she thought proper. The
dervise accordingly laid himself on a sofa, and by means of
certain cabalistic words, transported his soul into the body of
the nightingale, and began to sing. Fadlallah watched his
time ; he lay in a comer of the room unobserved ; but no
sooner had the dervise deserted his body, than the king pro-
ceeded to take possession of it. The first thing he did was to
hasten to the cage, to open the door with uncontrolable im-
patience, and, seizing the bird, to twist off its head. Zemroude,
amazed, asked hini what he meant by so inhuman an action.
Fadlallah, in reply, related to her all the circumstances that had
befallen him : and the queen became so struck with agony and
remorse that she had suffered her person, however innocently,
to be polluted by so vile an impostor, that she could not get over
the recollection, but pined away and died from a sense of the
degradation she had endured.

But a much more perplexing and astounding instance of trans*
formation occurs in the history of the Young King of Thibet
and the Princess of the Naimans. The sorcerers in this case
^re represented as, without any intermediate circumstance to
facilitate their witchcraft, having the ability to assume the lorm
of any one they please, and in consequence to take the shape of
one actually present, producing a duplication the most confound-
ing that can be imagined. — Mocbel, the son of an artificer of
Damascus, but whose father had bequeathed him considerable
wealth, contrived to waste his patrimony and his youth togethei
in profligate living with Dilnoiiaze, a woman of dissolute man-
ners. Finding themselves at once poor and despised, they had
recourse to the sage Bedra, the most accomplished magician of
the desert, and found means to obtain her favour, In conse*

lao LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

quence she presented them with two rings, which had the power
of enabling them to assume the likeness of any man or woman
they pleased. Thus equipped, Mocbel heard of the death of
Mouaffack, prince of the Naimans, who was supposed to have
been slain in a battle, and whose body had never been found.
The niece of Mouaffack now filled the throne ; and under these
circumstances Mocbel conceived the design of personating the
absent Mouaffack, exciting a rebellion among his countrymen,
and taking possession of the throne. In this project he suc-
ceeded ; and the princess, driven into exile, took refuge in the
capital of Thibet. Here the king saw her, fell in love with her,
and espoused her. Being made acquainted with her history, he
resolved to re-conquer her dominions, and sent a defiance to the
usurper. Mocbel, terrified at the thought of so formidable an
invader, first pretended to die, and then, with Dilnouaze, who
during his brief reign had under the form of a beautiful woman
personated his queen, proceeded in his original form to the
capital of Thibet. Here his purpose was to interrupt the happi-
ness of those who had disturbed him in his deceitful career.
Accordingly one night, when the queen, previously to proceeding
to her repose, had shut herself up in her closet to read certain
passages of the Koran, Dilnouaze, assuming her form with the
minutest exactness, hastened to place herself in the royal bed by
the side of the king. After a time, the queen shut her book,
and went along the gallery to the king's bedchamber. Mocbel
watched his time, and placed himself, under the form of a frightful
apparition, directly in the queen's path. She started at the
sight, and uttered a piercing shriek. The king recognised her
voice, and hastened to see what had happened to her. She ex-
plained ; but the king spoke of something much more extra-
ordinary, and asked her how it could possibly happen that she
should be in the gallery, at the same moment that he had left
her undressed and in bed. They proceeded to the chamber to
unravel the mystery. Here a contention occurred between the
real and the seeming queen, each charging the other with im-
posture . The king turned from one to the other, and was unable
to decide between their pretensions. The courtiers and the
ladies of the bedchamber >vere called, and- all wer^ perplexed

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 121

with uncertainty and doubt. At length they determined in
favour of the false queen. It was then proposed that the other
should be burned for a sorceress. The king however forbade
this. He was not yet altogether decided;^ and could not resolve
to consign his true queen, as it might possibly be, to a cruel
death. He was therefore content to strip her of her royal robes,
to clothe her in rags, and thrust her ignominiously from his palace.
Treachery, however, was not destined to be ultimately triumph-
ant. The king one day rode out a-hunting ; and Mocbel, that
he might the better deceive the guards of the palace, seizing the
opportunity, assumed his figure, and went to bed to Dilnouaze.
The king meanwhile recollected something of importance, that
he had forgotten before he went out to hunt, and returning upon
his steps, proceeded to the royal chamber. Here to his utter
confusion he found a man in bed with his queen, and that man,
to his greater astonishment, the exact counterpart of himself.
Furious at the sight, he immediately drew his scimitar. The
man contrived to escape down the backstairs. Tte woman how-
ever remained in bed ; and, stretching out her hands to intreat
for mercy, the king struck off the hand which had the ring on
it, and she immediately appeared, as she really was, a frightful
hag. She begged for life ; and, that she might mollify his rage,
explained the mystery, told him that it was by means of a ring
that she effected the delusion, and that by a similar enchantment
her paramour had assumed the likeness of the king. The king
meanwhile was inexorable, and struck off her head. He next
turned in pursuit of the adulterer. Mocbel, however, had had
time to mount on horseback. But the king mounted also ; and.
being the better horseman,in a short time overtook his foe. The
impostor did not dare to cope with him, but asked his life ; and
the king, considering him as the least offender of the two, par-
doned him upon condition of his surrendering the ring, in con-
sequence of which he passed the remainder of his life in poverty
and decrepitude.

STORY OF A GHOUL,
A story in the " Arabian Nights,*' which merits notice for its
singularity, and as exhibiting a particular example of the credu-
lity of the people of the East, is that of a man who married a

123 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, .

sorceress, without being in any way conscious of her character
in that respect. She was sufficiently agreeable in her person,
and he found for the most part no reason to be dissatisfied with
her. But he became uneasy at the strangeness of her behaviour,
whenever they sat together at meals. The husband provided a
sufficient variety of dishes, and was anxious that his wife should
eat and be refreshed. But she took scarcely any nourishment. He
set before her a plate of rice. From this plate she took some-
what, grain by grain ; but she would taste of no other dish. The
husband remonstrated with her upon her way of eating, but to no
purpose ; she still went on the same. He knew it was impos-
sible for any one to subsist upon so little as she ate ; and his
curiosity was roused. One night, as he lay quietly awake, he
perceived his wife rise very softly, and put on her clothes. He
watched, but jnade as if he saw nothing. Presently she opened
the door, and went out. He followed her unperceived, by moour
light, and tracked her into a place of graves. Here to his as-
tonishment he saw her joined by a Ghoul, a sort of wandering
demon, which is known to infest ruinous buildings, and from tinie
to time suddenly rushes out, seizes children and other defence-
less people, strangles, and devours them. Occasionally, for
want of other food, this detested race will resort to churchyards,
and, digging up the bodies of the newly-buried, gorge their ap-
petites upon the flesh of these. The husband followed his wife
and her supernatural companion, and watched their proceedings.
He saw them digging in a new-made grave. They extracted
the body of the deceased ; and, the Ghoul cutting it up joint
by joint, they feasted voraciously, and, having satisfied their
appetites, cast the remainder into the grave again, and covered
it up as before. The husband now withdrew unobserved to his
bed, and the wife followed presently after. He however con-
ceived a horrible loathing of such a wife ; and she discovered
that he was acquainted with her dreadful secret. They could no
longer live together; and a metamorphosis followed. She turned
him into a dog, which by ill-usage she drove from her door ; and
he, aided by a benevolent sorceress, first recovers his natural
shape: and then, having changed her into a mare, by perpetual
hard usage and ill-treatment vents his detestation of the character
he had discovered in her,

LIVES QF THE NECRQMANCERS. ^23

ARABIAN NIGHTS.
A compilation of more vigorous imagination and more ex-
hjaustless variety than the " Arabian Nights/' perhaps never
existed. Almost every thing that pan be conceived of marvel-
lous and terrific is there to be found. When we should appre-
hend the author or authors to have come to an end of the rich
vein in which they expatiate, still new wonders arc presented to
Tus in endless succession. Their power of con>ic exhibition is
not less extraordinary than their power of surprising and terrify-
jng. The splendour of their pointing is endless ; and the mind
of the reader is roused and refreshed by shapes and colours for
ever new.

RJ^SEMBLANCE Of THE TALES OF THE EAST AND Of
EUROPE,

It is characteristic of this work to exhibit a faithful and par-
ticular picture of Eastern manners, customs, and modes of think-
ing and acting. And yet, now and then, it is curious to observe
the coincidence of Oriental imagination with that of antiquity
and of the North of Europe, so, that it is difficult to conceive
the one not to be copied from the other.. Perhaps it was so ;
and perhaps not. Man is everywhere man, possessed of the
same faculties, stimulated by the same passions, deriving pain
and pleasure from the same sources, with similar hopes and fears,
aspirations and alarms.

In the Third Voyage of Sinbad he arrives at an island where
he finds one man, a negro, as tall as a palm-tree, and with a
single eye in the middle of his forehead. He takes up the crew,
one by one, and selects the fattest as first to be devoured. This
is done a second time. At length nine of the boldest sei?e on a
spit, while he lay on his back asleep, and, having heated it red-
hot, thrust it into his eye. — This is precisely the story of Ulysses
and the Cyclops.

The story of the Little Hunchback, who is choked] with a
fish-bone, and, after having brought successive individuals into
trouble on the suspicion of murdering him, is restored to life
again, is nearly the best knqwn of the Ar^bi^n Tales. ThQ

124 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

merry jest of Dan Hew, Monk of Leicester, who " once was
hanged, and four times slain," bears a very striking resemblance
to this.'

A similar resemblance is to be found, only changing the sex of
the aggressor, between the well known tale of Patient Grizzel,
and that of Cheheristany in the Persian Tales. This lady was a
queen of the Gins, who fell in love with the Emperor of China,
and agrees to marry him upon condition that she shall do what
she pleases, and he shall never dpubt that what she does is right.
She bears him a son, beautiful as the day, and throws him into
the fire. She bears him a daughter, and gives her to a white bitch,
who runs away with her and disappears. The emperor goes to
war with the Moguls ; and the queen utterly destroys the pro-
visions of his army. But the fire was a salamander, and the
bitch a fairy, who rear the children in the most admirable
manner ; and the provisions of the army were poisoned by a
traitor, and are in a miraculous manner replaced by such as were
wholesome and of the most invigorating qualities.

CAUSES OF HUMAN CREDULITY,
Meanwhile, though the stories above related are extracted
from books purely and properly of fiction, they exhibit so just a
delineation of Eastern manners and habits of mind, that, in the
defect of materials strictly historical, they may to a certain degree
supply the place. The principal feature they set before us is
credulity and a love of the marvellous. This is ever found
characteristic of certain ages of the world ; but in Asia it pre-
vails in uninterrupted continuity. Wherever learning and the
exercise of the intellectual faculties first show themselves, there
mystery and a knowledge not to be communicated but to the
select few must be expected to appear. Wisdom in its natural
and genuine form seeks to diffuse itself ; but in the East, on the
contrary, it is only valued in proportion to its rarity. Those who
devoted themselves to intellectual improvement, looked for it
rather in solitary abstraction than in free communication with
the minds of others ; and, when they condescended to the use

I It is in Selden's Collection of Ballads in the Bodleian Library. See
Letters from the Bodleian, vol. i, p, 120 to 126,

LIVES OP THE NECROMANCERS. X25

of the organ of speech, they spoke in enigmas and ambiguities,
and in phrases better adapted to produce wonder and perplexityj
than to enlighten and instruct. When the more consummate in-
structed the novice, it was by slow degrees only, and through the
medium of a long probation. In consequence of this state of
things the privileged few conceived of their own attainments
with an over-weening pride, and were puffed up with a sense of
superiority ; while the mass of their fellow-creatures looked to
them with astonishment ; and, agreeably to the Oriental creed of
two independent and contending principles of good and of evil,
regarded these select and supernaturally endowed beings anon
as a source of the most enviable blessings, and anon as objects
of unmingled apprehension and terror, before whom their under-
standings became prostrate, and every thing that was most ap-
palling and dreadful was most easily believed. In this state
superstition unavoidably grew infectious ; and the more the
seniors inculcated and believed, the more the imagination of
the juniors became a pliant and unresisting slave.

The Mantra, or charm, consisting of a few unintelligible words
repeated again and again, always accompanied, or rather pre-
ceded, the supposed miraculous phenomenon that was imposed
on the ignorant. Water was flung over, or in the face of, the
thing or person upon whom the miraculous effect was to be pro-
duced. Incense was burned ; and such chemical substances
were set on fire, the dazzling appearance of which might con-
found the senses of the spectators. The whole consisted in the
art of the juggler. The first business was to act on the passions,
to excite awe and fear and curiosity in the parties ; and next by
a sort of sleight of hand, and by changes too rapid to be followed
by an unpractised eye, to produce phenomena wholly unantici-
pated, and that could not be accounted for. Superstition was
further an essential ingredient ; and this is never perfect, but
where the superior and more active party regards himself as
something more than human, and the party acted upon beholds
in the other an object of religious reverence, or tingles with
apprehension of he knows not what of fearful and calamitous.
The state of the party acted on, and indeed of either, is never
complete, till the senses are confounded, what is imagined is so

i26 UV£S OP TMM NMcHdMANCMPS,

powerful as in a manner to exclude what is real, in a wbrd, till,-
as the poet expresses it, ** functidri is Smothered in surmise, and
ndthing is, but what is not.'^

It is in such a state of the faculties that it is entirely natural
aiid siniple, that one should mistake a mere dumb animal for
one's relative or near connection in disguise. And, the delusion
having once begun, the deluded individual gives to every gesture
and motion of limb and eye an explanation that forwards the
deception. It is in the same way that in ignorant ages the notion
6f changehngs has been produced. The weak and fascinated
mother sees every feature with a turn of expression unknown
before, all the habits of the child appear different and strange,
till the parent herself denies her offspring, and sees in the object
so lately cherished and doated on, a monster uncouth and horri-
ble of aspect.

DAifJC A GES OF E UROPE.

In Europe we are slenderly supplied with historians, and with
narratives exhibiting the manners and peculiarities of successive
races of men, from the time of Theodosius in the close of the
fourth century of the Christian era to the end of the tenth.
Mankind during that period were in an uncommon degree
wrapped up in ignorance and barbarism. We may be morally
sure that this was an interval beyond all others, in which super-
stition and an implicit faith in supernatural phenomena predomin-
ated over this portion of the globe. The laws of nature, and
the everlasting chain of antecedents and consequents, were little
recognised. In proportion as illumination and science have
risen on the world, men have become aware that the succession
of events is universally operating, and that the frame of men and
animals is every where the same, modified only by causes not
less unchangeable in their influence than the internal constitu-
tion of the frame itself. We have learned to explain much ; we
are able to predict and investigate the course of things ; and the
contemplative and the wise are not less intimately and pro-
foundly persuaded that the process of natural events is sure and
simple, and void of all just occasion for surprise and the lifting
up of hands in astonishment, where we are not yet familiarly

Lives 6f fiiE necMMaNCehs, 127

a!cquainted with the development of the elements of things, as
where we are. What we have not yet mastered, w^e feel confi-
dently persuaded that the investigators that come after us will
reduce to rules not less obvious, familiar and comprehensibley
than is to us the rising of the sun, or the progress of animal and
vegetable life from the first bud and seed of existence to the last
stage of decrepitude and decay.

But in these ages of ignorance, when but few, and those only
the most obvious, laws of nature were acknowledged^ every event
that was not of almost daily occurrence was cbntempiatecf with'
more or less of awe and alarm. These men "saw God in clouds,
ahd heard him in the wind." Instead of having regard only to
that universal Providence which acts not! by partial impulses
but by general laws, they beheld, as they conceived, the immedi-
ate hand of the Creator, or rather, upon most occasions, of sonie
invisible intelligence, sometimes beneficent, but perhaps oftener
malignant and capricious, interfering, to baffle the foresight of
the sage, to humble the" pride of the intelligent, and to place the
discernment of the most gifted upon a level with the drivellings
of the idiot, and the ravings of the insane.

And, as in events men saw perpetually the supernatural and
miraculous, so in their fellow-creatures they continually sought,
and therefore frequently imagined that they found, a gifted race,
that had command over the elements, held commerce with the
invisible world, and could produce the most stupendous and ter-
rific effects. In man, as we now behold him, we can ascertain
his nature, the strength and pliability of his limbs, the accuracy
of his eye, the extent of his intellectual acquisitions, and the
subtlety of his powers of thought, and can therefore in a great
measure anticipate what we have to hope or to fear from him.
Every thing is regulated by what we call natural means. But,
in the times I speak of, all was mysterious: the powers of men
were subject to no recognised laws : and therefore nothing that
imagination could suggest exceeded the bounds of credibility.
Some men were supposed to be so rarely endowed that " a thou-
sand liveried angels '' waited on them invisibly, to execute their
behests for the benefit of those they favoured ; while, much
oftener, the perverse and crookedly disposed, who delighted in

168 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. '

mischief, would bring on those to whom, for whatever capricious
reason, they were hostile, calamities which no sagacity could
predict, and no merely human power could baffle and resist.

After the tenth century enough of credulity remained to dis-
play in glaring colours the aberrations of the human mind, and
to furnish forth tales which will supply abundant matter for the
remainder of this volume. But previously to this period, we
may be morally sure, reigned most eminently the sabbath of
magic and sorcery, when nothing was too wild and remote from
the reality of things not to meet with an eager welcome, when
terror and astonishment united themselves with a nameless de-
light, and the auditor was alarmed even to a sort of madness, at
the same time that he greedily demanded an ever-fresh supply
of congenial aliment. The more the known laws of the universe
and the natural possibility of things were violated, with the
stronger marks of approbation was the tale received: while the
dextrous impostor, aware of the temper of his age, and knowing
how most completely to blindfold and lead astray his prepared
dupes, made a rich harvest of the folly of his contemporaries.
But I am wrong to call him an impostor. He imposed upon
himself, no less than on the gaping crowd. His discourses, even
in the act of being pronounced, won upon his own ear ; and thfe
dexterity with which he baffled the observation of others be-
wildered his ready sense, and filled him with astonishment at the
magnitude of his achievements. The accomplished adventurer
was always ready to regard himself rather as a sublime being
endowed with great and stupendous attributes, than as a pitiful
trickster. He became the god of his own idolatry, and stood
astonished, as the witch of Endor in the English Bible is repre-
sented to have done, at the success of his incantations.

But all these things are passed away, and are buried in the
gulf of oblivion. A thousand tales, each more wonderful than
the other, marked the year as it glided away. Every valley had
its fairies ; and every hill its giants. No solitary dwelling, un*
peopled with human inhabitants, was without its ghosts ; and
no church-yard in the absence of daylight could be crossed with
impunity. The gifted enchanter " bedimmed

UVBS OF THB NECROMANCERS. 129

*' The noon-tide sun, called forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault
Set roaring war; to the dread, rattling thunder ,j
He gave forth fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt, the strong-based promontory
He made to shake, and by the spurs plucked up
The pine and cedar."

It is but a small remnant of these marvellous adventures that
has been preserved. The greater part of them are swallowed
up in that gulf of oblivion, to which are successively consigned,
after a brief interval, all events as they occur, except so far as
their memory is preserved through the medium of writing and
records. From the eleventh century commences a stream of
historical relation, which since that time never entirely eludes
the search of the diligent inquirer. Before this period there oc-
casionally appears an historian or miscellaneous writer : but
he seems to start up by chance ; the eddy presently closes over
him, and all is again impenetrable darkness.

When this succession of writers began, they were unavoidably
induced to look back upon the ages that had preceded them, and
to collect here and there from tradition any thing that appeared
especially worthy of notice. Of course, any information they
could glean was wild and uncertain, deeply stamped with the
credulity and wonder of an ignorant period, and still increasing
in marvellousness and absurdity from every hand it passed
through, and from every tongue which repeated it.

MERLIN I
One of the most extraordinary personages whose story is thu*
delivered to us is Merlin. He appears to have been contem-
porary with the period of the Saxon invasion of Britain in the
latter part of the fifth century ; but probably the earliest men-
tion of his name by any writer that has come down to us is not
previous to the eleventh. We may the less wonder therefore at
the incredible things that are reported of him. He is first men-
tioned in connection with the fortune of Vortigern, who is repre-
sented by Geoffrey of Monmouth as at that time king of England.
The Romans having withdrawn their legions from this island,
the unwarlike Britons found themselves incompetent to repel the

9

130 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

invasions of the uncivilized Scots and Picts, and Vortigern per-
ceived no remedy but in inviting the Saxons from the northern
continent to his aid. The Saxons successfully repelled the in-
vader ; but, having done this, they refused to return home.
They determined to settle here, and, having taken various towns,
are represented as at length inviting Vortigern and his principal
nobility to a feast near Salisbury under pretence of a peace,
where they treacherously slew three hundred of the chief men
of the island, and threw Vortigern into chains. Here, by way
of purchasing the restoration of his liberty, they induced him to
order the surrender of London, York, Winchester, and other prin-
cipal towns. Having lost all his strongholds, he consulted his
magicians as to how he was to secure himself from this terrible
foe. They advised him to build an impregnable tower, and
pointed out the situation where it was to be erected. But so un-
fortunately did their advice succeed, that all the work that
his engineers did in the building one day, the earth swallowed,
so that no vestige was to be found on the next. The magicians
were consulted again on this fresh calamity ; and they told the
king that there was no remedying this disaster, other than by
cementing the walls of his edifice with the blood of a human
being, who was bom of no human father.

Vortigern sent out his emissaries in every direction in search
of this victim ; and at length, by strange good fortune, they
lighted on Merlin near the town of Caermarthen, who told them
that his mother was the daughter of a king, but that she had
been got with child of him by a being of an angelic nature, and
not a man. No sooper had they received this information, than
they seized him, and hurried him away to Vortigern as the victim
required. But in presence of the king he baffled the magicians ;
he told the king that the ground they had chosen for his tower
had underneath it a lake, which being drained, they would find
at the bottom two dragons of inextinguishable hostility, that
under that form figured the Britons and Saxons, all of which
upon the experiment proved to be true.

Vortigern died shortly after, and was succeeded first by Am-
brosius, and then by Uther Pendragon. Merlin was the confi-
dant of all these kings. To Uther he exhibited a very criminal

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. jy.

sort of compliance. Uther became desperately enamoured of
Igerna, wife of the Duke of Cornwall, and tried every means to
seduce her in vain. Having consulted Merlin, the magician
contrived by an extraordinary unguent to metamorphose Uther
into the form of the duke. The duke had shut up his wife fot
safety in a very strong tower ; but Uther in his new form gained
unsuspected entrance ; and the virtuous Igerna received him to
her embraces, by means of which he begot Arthur, afterwards
the most renowned sovereign of this island. Uther now con-
trived that the duke, her husband, should be slain in battle, and
immediately married the fair Igerna, and made her his queen.

The next exploit of Merlin was with the intent to erect a
monument that should last for ever, to the memory of the three
hundred British nobles that were massacred by the Saxons.
This design produced the extraordinary edifice called Stone-
henge. These mighty stones, which by no human power could
be placed in the position in which we behold them, had originally
been set up m Africa, and afterwards, by means (unknown, were
transported to Ireland. Merlin commanded that they should be
carried over the sea, and placed where they now are, on Salisbury
Plain. The workmen, having received his directions, exerted aU
their power and skill, but could not move one of them. Merlin
having for some time watched their exertions, at length applied
his magic ; and to the amazement of every one, the stones sponta-
neously quitted the situation in which they had been placed, rose
to a great height in the air, and then pursued the course which
Merlin had prescribed, finally settling themselves in Wiltshire,
precisely in the position in which we now find them, and which
they will for ever retain.

The last adventure recorded of Merlin proceeded from a pro-
ject he conceived for surrounding his native town of Caermar-
then with a brazen wall. He committed the execution of this
project to a multitude of fiends, who laboured .upon the plan
underground in a neighbouring cavern.^ In the meanwhile.
Merlin had become enamoured of a supernatural being, called
the Lady of the Lake. The lady had long resisted his importu-
nities, and in fact had no inclination to yield to his suit. Qne
' Spenser, " Fairy Queen," Book iii. Canto iii. stanza 9, et seqq.

X32 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

day, however, she sent for him in great haste ; and Merlin was
of course eager to comply with her invitation. Nevertheless,
before he set out, he gave it strictly in charge to the fiends that
they should by no means suspend their labours till they saw him
return. The design of the lady was to make sport with him,
and elude his addresses. Merlin, on the contrary, with the hope
to melt her severity, undertook to show her the wonders of his
art. Among the rest he exhibited to her observation a tomb,
formed to contain two bodies; at the same time teaching her a
charm, by means of which the sepulchre would close, and never
again be opened. The lady pretended not to believe that the
tomb was wide enough for its purpose, and inveigled the credu-
lous Merlin to enter it, and place himself as one dead. No
sooner had she so far succeeded, than she closed the lid of the
sepulchre, and pronouncing the charm, rendered it impossible
that it should ever be opened again till the day of judgment.
Thus, according to the story, Merlin was shut in, a corrupted
and putrifyin^ body with a living soul, to which still inhered the
faculty of returning in audible sounds a prophetic answer to such
as resorted to it as an oracle. Meanwhile, the fiends at work in
the cavern near Caermarthen, mindful of the injunction of their
taskmaster not to suspend their labours till his return, proceed
for ever in their office ; and the traveller who passes that way,
if he lays his ear close to the mouth of the cavern, may hear a
ghastly noise of iron chains and brazen caldrons, the loud strokes
of the hammer, and the ringing sound of the anvil, intermixed
with the pants and groans of the workmen, enough to unsettle
the brain and confound the faculties of him that for any time
shall listen to the din.

As six hundred years elapsed between the time of Merlin and
the earliest known records of his achievements, it is impossible
to pronounce what he really pretended to perform, and how great
were the additions which successive reporters have annexed to
the wonders of his art, more than the prophet himself perhaps
ever dreamed of. In later times, when the historians were the
contemporaries of the persons by whom the supposed wonders
were achieved, or the persons who have for these causes been
celebrated have bequeathed certain literary productions to pos-

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 133

terity, we may be able to form some conjecture as to the degree
in which the heroes of the tale were deluding or deluded, and
may exercise our sagacity in the question by what strange pecu-
liarity of mind adventures which we now hold to be impossible
obtained so general a belief. But in a case like this of Merlin,
who lived in a time so remote from that in which his history is
first known to have been recorded, it is impracticable to deter-
mine at what time the fiction which was afterwards generally
received began to be reported, or whether the person to whom
the miracles were imputed ever heard or dreamed of the extra-
ordinary things he is represented as having achieved.

ST, DUNSTAN,

An individual scarcely less famous in the dark ages, and who,
like Merlin, Uved in confidence with successive kings, was St.
Dunstan. He was bom and died in the tenth century. It is not
a httle instructive to employ our attention upon the recorded ad-
ventures and incidents occurring in the lives of such men,
since, though plentifully interspersed with impossible tales, they
serve to discover to us the tastes and prepossessions of the times
in which these men lived, and the sort of accomplishments which
were necessary to their success.

St. Dunstan is said to have been a man ot distinguished birth,
and to have spent the early years of his life in much licentious-
ness. He was, however, doubtless a person of the most extra-
ordinary endowments of nature. Ambition early lighted its fire
in his bosom ; and he displayed the greatest facility in acquiring
any talent or art on which he fixed his attention. His career of
profligacy was speedily arrested by a dangerous illness, in which
he was given over by his physicians. While he lay apparently
at the point of death, an angel was suddenly seen, bringing a
medicine to him which effected his instant cure. The saint im-
mediately rose from his bed, and hastened to the nearest church
to give God thanks for his recovery. As he passed along, the
devil, surrounded by a pack of black dogs, interposed himself
to obstruct his way. Dunstan, however, intrepidly brandished a
rod that he held in his hand, and his opposers took to flight.
When he came to the church, he found the doors closed. But

134 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

the same angel who effected his cure was at hand, and, taking
him up softly by the hair of his head, placed him before the
high altar, where he performed his devotions with suitable
fervour.

That he might expiate the irregularities of his past life, St.
Dunstan now secluded himself entirely from the world, and con-
structed for his habitation a cell in the Abbey of Glastonbury,
so narrow that he could neither stand upright in it, nor stretch
out his limbs in repose. He took scarcely so much sustenance
as would support life, and mortified his flesh with frequent casti-
gations.

He did not, however, pass his time during this seclusion in
vacuity and indolence. He pursued his studies with the utmost
ardour, and made a great proficiency in philosophy, divinity,
painting, sculpture, and music. Above all, he was an admirable
chemist, excelled in manufactures of gold and other metals, and
was distinguished by a wonderful skill in the art of magic.

During all these mortifications and the severeness of his in-
dustry, he appears to have become a prey to extraordinary
visions and imaginations. Among the rest, the devil visited him
in his cell, and, thrusting his head in at the window, disturbed
the saint with obscene and blasphemous speeches, and the most
frightful contortions of the features of his countenance. Dunstan
at length, wearied out with his perseverance, seized the red-hot
tongs with which he was engaged in some chemical experiment,
and, catching the devil by the nose, held him with the utmost
firmness, while Satan filled the whole neighbourhood for many
miles round with his bellowings. Extraordinary as this may-
appear, it constitutes one of the most prominent incidents in the
life of the saint ; and the representations of it were for ever
repeated in ancient carvings, and in the illuminations of church
windows.

This was the precise period at which the pope and his ad-
herents were gaining the greatest ascendancy in the Christian
world. The doctrine of transubstantiation was now in the
highest vogue ; and along with it a precept still more essential
to the empire of the Catholic Church, the celibacy of the clergy.
This was not at first established without vehement struggles.

UVns OF THE r^ECkOMANCEkS, 135

The secular clergy, who were required at once to cast off their
wives as concubines, and their children as bastards, found every
impulse of nature rising in arms against the mandate. The
regular clergy, or monks, were in obvious rivalship with the
seculars, and engrossed to themselves, as much as possible, all
promotions and dignities, as well ecclesiastical as civil. St.
Augustine, who first planted Christianity in this island, was a
Benedictine monk ; and the Benedictines were for a long time
in the highest reputation in the Catholic Church. St Dunstan
was also a Benedictine. In his time the question of the celibacy
of the clergy was most vehemently agitated ; and Dunstan was
the foremost of the champions of the new institution in Eng-
land. The contest was carried on with great vehemence. Many
of the most powerful nobility, impelled either by pity for the suf-
ferers, or induced by family affinities, supported the cause of
the seculars. Three successive synods were held on the subject;
and the cause of nature it is said would have prevailed, had not
Dunstan and his confederates called in the influence of miracles
to their aid. In one instance, a crucifix, fixed in a conspicuous
part of the place of assembly, uttered a voice at the critical
moment, saying, " Be steady ! you have once decreed right ;
alter not your ordinances." At another time the floor of the
place of meeting partially gave way, precipating the ungodly
opposers of celibacy into the place beneath, while Dunstan and
his party, who were in another part of the assembly, were
miraculously preserved unhurt.

In these instances Dunstan seemed to be engaged in the
cause of religion, and might be considered as a zealous, though
■ mistaken, advocate of Christian simplicity and purity. But he
was not contented with figuring merely as a saint. He insinuated
himself into the favour of Edred, the grandson of Alfred, and
who, after two or three short reigns, succeeded to the throne.
Edred was an inactive prince, but greatly under the dominion of
religious prejudices; and Dunstan, being introduced to him,
found him an apt subject for his machinations. Edred first made
him Abbot of Glastonbury, one of the most powerful ecclesi-
astical dignities in England, and then treasurer of the kingdom.
During the reign of this prince, Dunstan disposed, of all ecclesi-

136 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

astical affairs, and even of the treasures of the kingdom, at his
pleasure.

But Edred filled the throne only nine years, and was suc-
ceeded by Edwy at the early age of seventeen, who is said to
have been endowed with every grace of form, and the utmost
firmness and intrepidity of spirit. Dunstan immediately con-
ceived a jealousy of these qualities, and took an early oppor-
tunity to endeavour to disarm them. Edwy entertained a passion
for a princess of the royal house, and even proceeded to marry
her, though within the degrees forbidden by the canon law. The
rest of the story exhibits a lively picture of the manners of those
barbarous times, Odo, Archbishop of Canterbury, the obedient
tool of Dunstan, on the day of the coronation obtruded himself
with his abettor into the private apartment to which the king
had retired with his queen, only accompanied by her mother ;
and here the ambitious abbot, after loading Edwy with the bit-
terest reproaches for his shameless sensuality, thrust him back
by main force into the hall, where the nobles of the kingdom
were still engaged at their banquet.

The spirited young prince conceived a deep resentment of this
unworthy treatment, and, seizing an opportunity, called Dunstan
to account for malversation in the treasury during the late king's
life-time. The priest refused to answer ; and the issufe was that
he was banished the realm.

But he left behind him a faithful and implicit coadjutor in
Archbishop Odo. This prelate is said actually to have forced
his way with a party of soldiers into the palace, and, having
seized the queen, barbarously to have seared her cheeks with a
red-hot iron, and sent her off a prisoner to Ireland. He then
proceeded to institute all the forms of a divorce, to which the
unhappy king was obliged to submit Meanwhile the queen,
having recovered her beauty, found means to escape, and, cross-
ing the Channel, hastened to join her husband. But here again
the priests manifested the same activity as before. They inter-
cepted the queen in her journey, and by the most cruel means
undertook to make her a cripple for life. The princess, however,
sunk under the experiment, and ended her existence and her
woes together.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 137

A rebellion was now excited against the sacrilegious Edwy ;
&iid the whole north of England, having rebelled, was placed
under the dominion of his brother, a boy of thirteen years of age.
In the midst of these adventures Dunstan returned from the con-
tinent, and fearlessly showed himself in his native country. His
party was every where triumphant ; Odo being dead, he was in-
stalled archbishop of Canterbury, and Edwy, oppressed with
calamity on every side, sunk to an untimely grave.

The rest of the life of Dunstan was passed in comparative
tranquillity. He made and unmade kings as he pleased. Edgar,
the successor of Edwy, discovered the happy medium of energy
and authority as a sovereign, combined with a disposition to in-
dulge the ambitious policy of the priesthood. He was licen-
tious in his amours, without losing a particle of his ascendancy
as a sovereign. He, however, reigned only a few years ; but
Dunstan at his death found means to place his eldest son on the
throne under his special protection, in defiance of the intrigues
of the ambitious Elfrida, the king's second wife, who moved
heaven and earth to cause the crown to descend upon her own
son, as yet comparatively an infant

In this narrative we are presented with a lively picture of the
means by which ambition climbed to its purposes in the dark-
ness of the tenth century. Dunstan was enriched with all those
endowments which might seem in any age to lead to the highest
distinction. Yet it would appear to have been in vain that he
was thus qualified, if he had not stooped to arts that fell in with
the gross prejudices of his contemporaries. He had continual
recourse to the aid of miracles. He gave in to practices,of the
most rigorous mortification. He studied, and excelled in, all
the learning and arts that were then known. But his main de-
pendence was on the art of magic. The story of his taking the
devil by the nose with a pair of red-hot tongs seems to have
been of greater service to him than any other single adventure
of his life. In other times he might have succeeded in the
schemes of his political ambition by seemly and specious means.
But it was necessary for him in the times in which he lived to
proceed with ^clat, and in a way that should confound all op-
posers. The utmost resolution was required to overwhelm those

13^ UVns OP THE N£C/?OMAA-C£ieS.

who might otherwise have been prompted to contend against
him. Hence it appears that he took a right measure of the
understanding of his contemporaries when he dragged the
young king from the scene of his retirement, and brought him
back by force into the assembly of the nobles. And the incon-
ceivable barbarity practised to the queen, which would have
rendered his name horrible in a more civilised age, was exactly
calculated to overwhelm the feelings, and subject the under-
standings of the men aniong whom he lived. The great quality
by which he was distinguished was confidence, a frame of be-
haviour which showed that he acted from the fullest conviction,
and never doubted that his proceedings had the immediate ap-
probation of heaven.

COMMUNICATION OF EUROPE AND THE SARACENS, J

It appears to have been about the close of the tenth century
that the more curious and inquisitive spirits of Europe first had
recourse to the East as a source of such information and art as
they found most glaringly deficient among their countrymen.
We have seen that in Persia there was an uninterrupted succes-
sion of professors in the art of magic: and, when the followers
of Mahomet, by their prowess, had gained the superiority over
the greater part of Asia, over all that was known of Africa, and
a considerable tract of Europe, they gradually became awake to
the desire of cultivating the sciences, and in particular of making
themselves masters of whatever was most liberal and eminent
among the disciples of Zoroaster. To this they added a curi-
osity respecting Greek learning, especially as it related to medi-
cine and the investigation of the powers of physical nature.
Bagdad became an eminent seat of learning; and perhaps, next
to Bagdad, Spain, under the Saracens, or Moors, was a principal
abode for the professors of ingenuity and literature.

GERBERT, POPE SILVESTER II,

As a consequence of this state of things, the more curious men
of Europe by degrees adopted the practice of resorting to Spain
for the purpose of enlarging their sphere of observation and
knowledge. Among others, Gerbert is reported to have been

. LIVES OF THk NECROMANCERS, 13^

the first of the Christian clergy who strung themselves up to
the resolution of mixing with the followers of Mahomet, that
they might learn from thence things, the knowledge of which it
was impossible for them to obtain at home. This generous ad-
venturer, prompted by an insatiable thirst for information, is said
to have secretly withdrawn himself from his monastery of Fleury
in Burgundy, and to have spent several years among the Sara-
cens of Cordova. Here he acquired a knowledge of the lan-
guage and learning of the Arabians, particularly of their
astronomy, geometry and arithmetic ; and he is understood to
have been the first that imparted to the north and west of Europe
a knowledge of the Arabic numerals, a science which at first
sight might be despised for its simplicity, but which in its conse-
quences is no inconsiderable instrument in subtilising the powers
of human intellect. He likewise introduced the use of clocks.
He is also represented to have made an extraordinary proficiency
in the art of magic ; and among other things is said to have con-
structed a brazen head which would answer when it was spoken
to, and oracularly resolve many difficult questions.^ The same
historian assures us that Gerbert, by the art of necromancy, made
various discoveries of hidden treasures, and relates in all its
circumstances the spectacle of a magic palace he visited under-
ground, with the multiplied splendours of an Arabian tale, but
distinguished by this feature, that, though its magnificence was
dazzling to the sight, it would not abide the test of feeling, but
vanished into air the moment it was attempted to be touched.

It happened with Gerbert, as with St. Dunstan, that he united
an aspiring mind and a boundless spirit of ambition with the
intellectual curiosity which has already been described. The
first step that he made into public life and the career for which
he panted, consisted in his being named preceptor, first to
Robert, King of France, the son of Hugh Capet, and next to
Otho the Third, Emperor of Germany, Hugh Capet appointed
him Archbishop of Rheims ; but, that dignity being disputed
with him, he retired into Germany, and, becoming eminently
a favourite with Otho the Third, he was by the influence of that

* William of Malmesbury, lib. ii. c. 10.

i40 LlVMS OF THE NECROMANCERS.

prince raised, first to be Archbishop of Ravenna, and afterwards
to the papacy by the name of Silvester the Second.*

Cardinal Benno, who was an adherent of the anti-popes, and
for that reason is supposed 'to have calumniated Gerbert and
several of his successors, affirms that he was habitually waited
on by demons, that by their aid he obtained the papal crown,
and that the devil to whom he had sold himself faithfully pro-
mised him that he should live till he had celebrated high mass
at Jerusalem. This, however, was merely a juggle of the evil
spirit ; and Gerbert actually died shortly after having officially
dispensed the sacrament at the church of the Holy Cross in
Jerusalem, which is one of the seven districts of the City of
Rome. This event occurred in the year 1003.*

BENEDICT THE NINTH.

According to the same authority, sorcery was at this time ex-
tensively practised by some of the highest dignitaries of the
Church, and five or six popes in succession were notorious for
these sacrilegious practices. About the same period the papal
chair was at its lowest state of degradation ; this dignity was
repeatedly exposed for sale ; and the reign of Gerbert, a man of
consummate abilities and attainments, is almost the only re-
deeming feature in the century in which he lived At length
the tiara became the purchase of an ambitious family, which
had already furnished two popes, in behalf of a boy of twelve
years of age, who reigned by the name of Benedict the Ninth.
This youth, as he grew up, contaminated his rule with every
kind of profligacy and debauchery. But even he, according to
Benno, was a pupil in the school of Silvester, and became no
mean proficient in the arts of sorcery. Among other things he
caused the matrons of Rome, by his incantations, to follow him
in troops among woods and mountains, being bewitcljed and
their souls subdued by the irresistible charms of his magic.3

t William of Malmesbury, lib. ii. c. 10. "

^ Naud^, Apologie des Grands Hommes Accuses de Magie. Malmesburyi
uH supra,
3 Ibid., chap. X9.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 141

GREGORY THE SEVENTH,

Beimo presents us with a regular catalogue of the ecclesi-
astical sorcerers of this period : Benedict IX., and Laurence,
Archbishop of Melfi (each of whom, he says, learned the art of
Silvester), John XX., and Gregory VI. But his most vehement
accusations are directed against Gregory VII., who, he affirms,
was in the early part of his career the constant companion and
assistant of these dignitaries in unlawful practices of this sort.

Gregory VII., whose original name was Hildebrand, is one of
the great champions of the Romish Church, and did more than
any other man to establish the law of the celibacy of the clergy,
and to take the patronage of ecclesiastical dignities out of the
hands of the laity. He was eminently qualified for this under*
taking by the severity of his manners, and the inflexibility qf
his resolution to accomplish whatever he undertook.

His great adversary was Henry IV., Emperor of Germany, a
young prince of high spirit, and at that time (1075) twenty-four
years of age. Gregory sent to summon him to Rome, to answer
an accusation that he, as all his predecessors had done, being a
layman, had conferred ecclesiastical dignities. Henry refused
submission, and was immediately declared excommunicated.
In retaliation for this offence, the emperor, it is said, gave his
orders to a chief of brigands, who, watching his opportunity,
seized the pope in the act of saying mass in one of the churches
of Rome, and carried him prisoner to a tower in the city which
was in the possession of this adventurer. But no sooner was
this known, than the citizens of Rome rose en masse and rescued
their spiritual father. Meanwhile, Henry, to follow up his blow,
assembled a synod at Worms, who pronounced on the pope that
for manifold crimes he was fallen from his supreme dignity, and
accordingly fulminated a decree of deposition against him. But
Henry had no forces to carry this decree into execution ; and
Gregory on his side emitted a sentence of degradation against
the emperor, commanding the Germans to elect a new emperor
in his place. It then became evident that, in this age of igno-
rance and religious subjugation, the spiritual arm, at least in
Germany, was more powerful than the temporal ; and Henry,

142 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

having maturely considered the perils that surrounded him, took
the resolution to pass the Alps with a few domestics only, and,
repairing to the presence of the pope, submit himself to such
penance as the pontiflf should impose. Gregory was at this time
at Canosa, a fortress beyond Naples, which was surrounded by
three walls. Henry, without any attendant, was admitted within
the first wall. Here he was required to cast oflf all the symbols
of royalty, to put on a hair-shirt, and to wait barefoot his
holiness's pleasure. He stood accordingly, fasting from morn
to eve, without receiving the smallest notice from the pontiff.
It was in the month of January. He passed through the same
trial the second day, and the third. On the fourth day in the
morning he was admitted to the presence of the holy father.
They parted, however, more irreconcilable in heart than ever,
though each preserved the appearance of good will. The pope
insisted that Henry should abide the issue of the congress in
Germany, of which he constituted himself president ; and the
emperor, exasperated at the treatment he had received, resolved
to keep no terms with Gregory. Henry proceeded to the elec-
tion of an anti-pope, Clement III., and Gregory patronised a^
new emperor, Rodolph, Duke of Suabia. Henry had, however^
generally been successful in his military enterprises ; and be
defeated Rodolph in two battles, in the last of which his opponent
was slain. In the synod of Brixen, in which Clement III. was
elected, Gregory was sentenced as a magician and a necro-
mancer. The emperor, puffed up with his victories, marched
against Rome, and took it, with the exception of the castle of
St. Angelo, in which the pope shut himself up ; and in the mean
time Henry caused the anti-pope, his creature, to be solemnly
inaugurated in the Church of the Lateran. Gregory, however,
never dismayed, and never at an end of his expedients, called in
the Normans, who had recently distinguished themselves by
their victories in Naples and Sicily. Robert Guiscard, a Nor-
man chieftain, drove the Germans out of Rome ; but, some
altercations ensuing between the pontiff and his deliverer, the
city was given up to pillage, and Gregory was glad to take refuge
in Salerno, the capital of his Norman ally, where he shortly
, After expired, an exile and a fugitive.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 143

Gregory was no doubt a man of extraordinary resources and
invincible courage. He did not live to witness the triumph of
his policy ; but his projects for the exaltation of the Church
finally met with every success his most sanguine wishes could
have aspired to. In addition to all the rest, it happened that
the Countess Matilda, a princess who in her own right pos-
sessed extensive sovereignties in Italy, nearly commensurate
with what has since been styled the ecclesiastical state, trans-
ferred to the pope in her life-time, and confirmed by her testa*
ment, all these territories, thus mainly contributing to render
him and his successors so considerable as temporal princes as
since that time they have appeared.

It is, however, as a sorcerer that Gregory VII. (Hildebrand)
finds a place in this volume. Benno relates that, coming one
day from his Alban villa, he found, just as he was entering the
Church of the Lateran, that he had left behind him his magical
book, which he was accustomed to carry about his person. He
immediately sent two trusty servants to fetch it, at the same
time threatening them most fearfully if they should attempt to
look into the volume. Curiosity, however, got the better of their
fear. They opened the book, and began to read ; when presently
a number of devils appeared, saying, ** We are come to obey
your commands, but, if we find ourselves trifled with, we shall
certainly fall upon and destroy you." The servants, exceedingly
terrified, replied, " Our will is that you should immediately throw
down so much of the wall of the city as is now before us." The
devils obeyed ; and the servants escaped the danger that hung
over them.» It is further said, that Gregory was so expert in the
arts of magic, that he would throw out lightning by shaking his
arm, and dart thunder from his sleeve.^

But the most conspicuous circumstance in the life of Gregory
that has been made the foundation of a charge of necromancy
against him is that, when Rodolph marched against Henry IV.,
the pope was so confident of his success as to venture publicly
to prophesy, both in speech and in writing, that his adversary
. should be conquered and perish in this campaign. ** Nay," he

* Mornay, Mysterium Iniquitatis, p. 258, Coeffetean, Reponse k ditto,,
p. 274. s Ibid. ^

144 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

added, " this prophecy shall be accomplished before St. Peter's
day ; nor do I desire any longer to be acknowledged for pope,
than on the condition that this comes to pass." It is added
that Rodolph, relying on the prediction, six times renewed the
battle, in which Unally he perished instead of his competitor.
But this does not go far enough to substantiate a charge of
necromancy. It is further remarked, that Gregory was deep in
the pretended science of judicial astrology ; and this, without
its being necessary to have recourse to the solution of diabolical
aid, may sufficiently account for the undoubting certainty with
which he counted on the event.

In the meantime, this statement is of great importance, as
illustrative of the spirit of the times in general, and the character
of Gregory in particular. Rodolph, the competitor for the em-
pire, has his mind wrought up to such a pitch by this prophetic
assurance, that, five times repulsed, he yet led on his forces a
sixth time, and perished the victim of his faith. Nor were his
followers less animated than he, and from the same cause. We
see also from the same story that Gregory was not an artful and
crafty impostor, but a man spurred on by a genuine enthusiasm.
And this, indeed, is necessary to account for the whole of his
conduct. The audacity with which he .opposed the claims of
Hei^ry, and the unheard-of severity with which he treated him
at the fortress of Canosa, are to be referred to the same feature
of character. Invincible perseverance, when united with great
resources of intellect and a lofty spirit, will enable a man tho-
roughly to effect what a person of inferior endowments would
not have dared so much as to dream of. And Gregory, like St.
Dunstan, achieved incredible things, by skilfully adapting him-
$elf to circumstances, and taking advantage of the temper and
weakness of his contemporaries.

DUFF, KING OF SCOTLAND.

It is not to be wondered at, when such things occurred in
Italy, the principal seat of all the learning and refinement then
existing in Europe, that the extreme northerly and western dis-
tricts should have been given up to the blindest superstition.
Among other instances we have the following account in relation

UVMS 6F tHM NECROMANCERS; 14^

to Duff, King of Scotland, who came to the crown dbout the
year 968. He found his kingdom in the greatest disorder from
numerous bands of robbers, many of whom were persons of
high descent, but of no competent means of subsistence. Duff
resolved to put an end to their depredations, and to secure those
who sought a quiet support from cultivating the fruits of the
earth from forcible invasion. He executed the law against these
disturbers without respect of persons, and hence made himself
many and powerful enemies. In the midst of his activity, how-
ever, he suddenly fell sick, and became confined to his bed.
His physicians could no way account lor his distemper. They
found no excess of any humour in his body to which they could
attribute his illness ; his colour was fresh, and his eyes lively ;
and he had a moderate and healthful appetite. But with all this
he was a total stranger to sleep ; he burst out into immoderate
perspirations ; [and there was scarcely anything that remained of
him, but skin and bone. In the mean time secret information was
brought that all this evil was the result of witchcraft. And, the
house being pointed out in which the sorcerers held their sab-
bath, a band of soldiers was sent to surprise them. The doors
being burst open, they found one woman roasting upon a spit by
the fire a waxen image of the king, so like in every feature, that
no doubt was entertained that it was modelled by the art of the
devil, while another sat by, busily engaged in reciting certain
verses of enchantment, by which means, as the wax melted, the
king was consumed with perspiration, and, as soon as it was
utterly dissolved, his death should immediately follow. The
witches were seized, and from their own confession burned alive*
The image was broken to pieces, and every fragment of it
destroyed. And no sooner was this effected, than Duff had all
that night the most refreshing and healthful sleep, and the next
day rose without any remains of his infirmity.^
. This reprieve, however, availed but for a short time. He wd3
no sooner recovered, than he occupied himself as before with
jJursuing the outlaws, whom he brought indiscriminately to con-
dign punishment. Among these there chanced to be two young

J Hollinshed, *' History of Scotland," pp* ao6> flo/*

10

t46 LiP'EB of TkE NECkoMANCERS,

meiij near relations to the governor of the castle of Forres, who
had hitherto been the king's most faithful adherenti These
young men had been deluded by bad company: and the gover-
nor most earnestly sued to Duff for their pardon. But the king
was inexorable. Meanwhile, as he had always placed the most
entire trust in their father, he continued to do so without the
smallest suspicion . The night after the execution, the king slept
in the castle of Forres, as he had often done before ; but the
governor, conceiving the utmost rancour at the repulse he had
sustained, and moreover instigated by his wife, in the middle
of the night murdered Duff in his bed, as he slept His reign
lasted only four years.*

MACBETH,

The seventh King of Scotland after Duff, with an interval ot
sixty-eight years, was Macbeth. The historian begins his tale
of witchcraft towards the end of the reign of Duncan, his pre-
decessor, with observing, " Shortly after happened a strange and
uncouth wonder, which afterward was the cause of much trouble
in the realm of Scotland. It fortuned, as Macbeth and Banquo
journeyed towards Forres, where the king as then lay, they went
sporting by the way together, without other company save only
themselves, passing through the woods and fields, when suddenly,
in the midst of a laund, there met them three women in strange
and ferly apparel, resembling creatures of an elder world, whom
when they attentively beheld, wondering much at the sight, the
first of them spake and said, *A11 hail, Macbeth, thane of
Glamis ' (for he had lately entered into that dignity and office
by the death of his father Synel). The second of them said,
' Hail, Macbeth, thane of Cawdor.' But the third said, *A11 hail,
Macbeth, that hereafter shall be King of Scotland.' Then
Banquo, * What sort of women,' said he, * are you, that seem so
little favourable unto me, where as to my fellow here, besides
high offices, ye assign also the kingdom, appointing forth nothing
for me at all ?' *Yes,' saith the first of them, *we promise greater
benefits unto thee than unto him, for he shall reign indeed, but
with an unlucky end, neither shall he leave any issue behind him

* Hollinshed, •' History of Scotland, pp. 207, 208.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS: 147

to succeed in his place ; where contrarily thou indeed shalt not
reign at all, but of thee those shall be born which shall govern
the Scottish kingdom by long order of continual descent/ Here-
with the foresaid Women vanished immediately out of theii
sight.

" This was reputed at the first but some vain fantastical illu-
sion by M^beth and Banquo, insomuch that Banquo would call
Macbeth in jest King of Scotland, and Macbeth again would
call him in sport likewise the father of many kings. But after-
wards the common opinion was, that these women were either
the weird sisters, that is (as you would say) the goddesses of
destiny, or else some nymphs or fairies> endued with knowledge
of prophecy by their necromantical science, because every thing
came to pass as they had spoken

" For shortly after, the thane of Cawdor, being condemned at
Forres of treason against the king committed, his lands, livings
and offices were given of the king's liberality unto Macbeth." *

Malcolm, the preceding King of Scotland, had two daughters,
one of them the mother of Duncan, and the other of Macbeth ;
and in virtue of this descent Duncan succeeded to the crown.
The accession of Macbeth therefore was not very remote, if he
survived the present king. Of consequence Macbeth, though he
thought much of the prediction of the weird sisters, yet resolved
to wait his "time, thinking that, as had happened in his former
preferment, this might come to pass without his aid. But Dun-
can had two sons, Malcolm Canmore and Donald Bane. The
law of succession in Scotland was, that, if at the death of the
reigning sovereign he that should succeed were not of sufficient
age to take on him the government, he that was next of blood
to him should be admitted. Duncan, however, at this juncture
created his? eldest son, Malcolm, Prince of Cumberland, a title
which was considered as designating him heir to the throne.
Macbeth was greatly troubled at this, as cutting off the expecta-
tion he thought he had a right to entertain: and, the words of the
weird sisters still ringing in his ears, and his wife with ambitious
speeches urging him to the deed, he, in conjunction with some
trusty friends, among whom was BanqU0,,came to a resolution

» Hollinshed, History of Scotland, p. 243, 244.

10—2

148 Llvns OP THE NECROMANCERS,

to kill the king at Inverness. The deed being perpfetrated,
Malcolm, the eldest son of Duncan, fled for safety into Cumber-
land, and Donald, the second, into Ireland.^

Macbeth, who became King of Scotland in the year 1040,
i-elgned for ten years with great popularity and applause, but at
Itfc end of that time changed his manner of government, and
became a tyrant. His first action in this character was against
Banquo. He remembered that the weird sisters had promised
tb Banquo that he should be father to a line of kings. Haunted
with this recollection, Macbeth invited Banquo and his son
Fleance to a supper, and appointed assassins to murder them
both on their return. Banquo was slain accordingly; but
Finance, under favour of the darkness of the night, escaped.*

This murder brought Macbeth into great odium, since every
man began to doubt of the security of his life, and Macbeth at
the same time to fear the ill-will of his subjects. He therefore
proceeded to destroy all against whom he entertained any sus-
picion, and every day more and more to steep his hands in
blood. Further to secure himself, he built a castle on the top
of a high hill, called Dunsinnan, which was placed on such an
elevation, that it seemed impossible to approach it in a hostile
manner. This work he carried on by means of requiring the
thanes of the kingdom, each one in turn, to come with a set of
workmen to help forward the edifice. When it came to the turn
of Macduff, thane of Fife, he sent workmen, but did not come
himself, as the others had done. Macbeth from that time re-
garded Macduff with an eye of perpetual suspicion.3

Meanwhile Macbeth, remembering that the origin of his pre-
sent greatness consisted in the prophecy of the weird sisters,
addicted himself continually to the consulting of wizards. Those
he consulted gave him a pointed warning to take heed of Mac-
duff, who in time to come would seek to destroy him. This
warning would unquestionably have proved fatal to Macduff;
had not on the other hand Macbeth been buoyed up in security,
by the prediction of a certain witch in whom he had great trust,
that he should never be vanquished till the wood of Bernane

, ' Hollinshed, History of Scotland, pp. 244, 245.-
? Ibid, p. 24^. 3 Ibid, pp. 248, 249.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 149

qame to the castle of Dunsinnan, and that he should not be slain
by any man that was born of a woman ; both which he judged
to be impossibilities.^

This vain confidence however urged him to do many out-
rageous things ; at the same time that such was his perpetual
uneasiness of mind, that in every nobleman's house he had one
servant or another in fee, that he might be acquainted with every
thing that was said or meditated against him. About this time
Macduff fled to Malcolm, who had now taken refuge in the
court of Edward the Confessor ; and Macbeth came with a
strong party into Fife with the purpose of surprising hiin. The
master being safe, those within Macduff's castle threw open the
gates,'thinking that no'mischief would result from receiving the
king. But Macbeth, irritated that he missed of his prey, caused
Macduff's wife and children, and all persons who were found
within the castle, to be slain. »

Shortly after, Malcolm and Macduff, reinforced by ten thou-
sand English under the command of Seyward, Earl of North-
umberland, marched into Scotland. The subjects of Macbeth
stole away daily from him to join the invaders; but he had such
confidence in the predictions that had been delivered to him,
that he still believed he should never be vanquished. Malcolm,
meanwhile, as he approached to the castle of Dunsinnan, com-
manded his men to cut down, each of them, a bough from the
wood of Bernane, as large as he could bear, that they might take
the tyrant the more by surprise. Macbeth saw, and thought the
wood approached him ; but he remembered the prophecy, and
led forth and marshalled his men. When, however, the enemy
threw down their boughs, and their formidable number stood re-
vealed, Macbeth and his forces immediately betook themselves
to flight. Macduff pursued him, and was hard at his heels, when
the tyrant turned his horse, and exclaimed, '* Why dost thou
follow me ? Know, that it is ordained that no creature bom of
a woman can ever overcome me." Macduff instantly retorted,
" I am the man appointed to slay thee. I was not born of a
woman, but was untimely ripped from my mother's womb."

X HoUinshed, History of Scotland, p. 249. » Ibid,

150 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

And, saying this, he killed him on the spot. Macbeth reigned
in the whole seventeen years.^

VIRGILr\

One of the most curious particulars, and which cannot be
omitted in a history of sorcery, is the various achievements in
the art of magic which have been related of the poet Virgil. I
bring them in here, because they cannot be traced further back
than the eleventh or twelfth century. The burial-place of this
illustrious man was at Pausilippo, near Naples; the Neapolitans
had for many centuries cherished a peculiar reverence for his
memory; and it has been supposed that the old ballads, and
songs of the minstrels of the north of Italy, first originated this
idea respecting him.« The vulgar of this city, full of imagina-
tionand poetry, conceived the idea of treating him as the guardian
genius of the place ; and, in bodying forth this conception, they
represented him in his lifetime as gifted with supernatural
powers, which he employed in various ways for the advantage
of a city that he so dearly loved. Be this as it will, it appears
that Gervais of Tilbury, chancellor to Otho the Fourth, Emperor
of Germany, Helinandus, a Cistercian monk, and Alexander
Neckam, all of whom lived about this time, first recorded these
particulars in their works.

They tell us, that Virgil placed a fly of brass over one of the
gates of the city, which, as long as it continued there, that is,
for a space of eight years, had the virtue of keeping Naples
clear from musquitoes and all noxious insects: that he built a set of
shambles, the meat in which was at all times free from putrefac-
tion: that he placed two images over the gates of the city, one
of which was named Joyful, and the other Sad, one of resplen-
dent beauty, and the other hideous and deformed, and that
whoever entered the town under the former image would succeed
in all his undertakings, and under the latter would as certainly
miscarry: that he caused a brazen statue to be erected on a
mountain near Naples, with a trumpet in his mouth, which when
the north wind blew, sounded so shrill as to drive to the sea
the fire and smoke which issued from the neighbouring forges of

^ Hollinshed, History of Scotland, p. 251. " Naudrf.

LIVES OP THE NECROMANCERS, 151

Vulcan: that he built difTerent baths at Naples, specifically pre-
pared for the cure of every disease, which were afterwards
demolished by the malice of the physicians: and that he lighted
a perpetual fire for the refreshment of all travellers, close to
which he placed an archer of brass, with his bow bent, and this
inscription, "Whoever strikes me, I will let fly my arrow:*' that
a foolhardy fellow notwithstanding struck the statue, when the
arrow was immediately shot into the fire, and the fire was extin-
guished. It is added, that, Naples being infested with a vast
multitude of contagious leeches, Virgil made a leech of gold,
which he threw into a pit, and so delivered the city from the in-
fection: that he surrounded his garden with a wall of air, within
which the rain never fell: that he built a bridge of brass that
would transport him wherever he pleased : that he made a set
of statues, which were named the salvation of Rome, which had
the property that, if any one of the subject nations prepared to
revolt, the statue, which bore the name of, and was adored by
that nation, rung a bell, and pointed with its finger in the direc-
tion of the danger: that he made a head, which had the virtue
of predicting things future: and lastly, amidst a world of other
wonders, that he cut a subterranean passage through mount
Pausilippo, that travellers might pass with perfect safety, the
mountain having before been so infested with serpents and
dragons, that no one could venture to cross it.

ROBERT OF LINCOLN

The most eminent person next, after popes Silvester II. and
Gregory VII., who labours under the imputation of magic, is
Robert Grosset^te, or Robert of Lincoln, appointed bishop of
that see in the year 1235. ^^ was, like those that have previously
been mentioned, a man of the most transcendent powers of mind
and extraordinary acquirements. His parents are said to have
been so poor, that he was compelled, when a boy, to engage in
the meanest offices for bread, and even to beg on the highway.
At length the Mayor of Lincoln, struck with his appearance,
and the quickness of his answers to such questions as were pro-
posed to him, took him into his family, and put him to school.
Here his ardent love of learning, and admirable capacity for

152 UV£S OF THE NECROMANCEJiS,

acquiring it, soon procured him many patrons, by whose assist-
ance he was enabled to prosecute his studies, fif st at Cambridge,
afterwards at Oxford, and finally at Paris. He was master of
the Greek and Hebrew languages, then very rare accomplish-
ments ; and is pronounced by Roger Bacon, a very competent
judge, of whom we shall presently have occasion to speak, to
have spent much of his time, for nearly forty years, in the
study of geometry, astronomy, optics, and other branches of
mathematical learning, in all of which he much excelled. So
that, as we are informed from the same authority, this same
Robert of Lincoln, and his friend, Friar Adam de Marisco,
were the two most learned men in the world, and excelled the
rest of mankind in both human and divine knowledge.

This great man especially distinguished himself by his firm
and undaunted opposition to the corruptions of the court of
Rome. Pope Innocent IV., who filled the papal chair up-
wards of eleven years, from 1243 to 1254, appears to have ex-
ceeded all his predecessors in the shamelessness of his abuses.
We are told that the hierarchy of the Church of England was
overwhelmed like a flood with an inundation of foreign dignita-
ries, of whom not a few were mere boys, for the most part with-
out learning, ignorant of the language of the island, and
incapable of benefiting the people nominally under their care,
the more especially as they continued to dwell in their own
countries, and scarcely once in their lives visited the sees to
which they had been appointed.^ Grosset^te lifted up his voice
against these scandals. He said that it was impossible the
genuine apostolic see, which received its authority from the Lord
Jesus for edification, and not for destruction, could be guilty of
such a crime, for that would forfeit all its glory, and plunge it
into the pains of hell. He did not scruple, therefore, among^his
most intimate friends, to pronounce the reigning pope to be the
true Antichrist ; and he addressed the pontiff himself in scarcely
more measured terms.

Among the other accomplishments of Bishop Grosset^te he is
said to have been profoundly skilled in the art of magic: an4

'^Godwin, Prsesulibiis, art, Gronthead,

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 153

the old poet Gower relates of him that he made a head of brass,
expressly constructed in such a manner as to be able to answer
such questions as were propounded to it, and to foretell future
events,

MICHAEL SCOT.

Michael Scot, of Balwirie, in the county of Fife, was nearly
contemporary with Bishop Grossetete. He was eminent for his
knowledge of the Greek and Arabic languages. He was patrO'<'
nised by the Emperor Frederic II.,who encouraged him to under-
take a translation of the works of Aristotle into Latin. He
addicted himself to astrology, chemistry, and the still more
frivolous sciences of chiromancy and physiognomy. It does not
appear that he made any pretence to magic ; but the vulgar, we
are told, generally regarded him as a sorcerer, and are said to
have carried their superstition so far as to have conceived a
terror of so much as touching his works,

THE DEAN OF BADAJOZ.

There is a story related by this acccomplished scholar, in a
collection of aphorisms and anecdotes entitled Mensa Philoso-^
phica, which deserves to be cited as illustrating the ideas then
current on the subject of sorcery. "A certain great necro-
mancer, or nigromancer, had once a pupil of considerable rank,
who professed himself extremely desirous for once to have the
gratification of believing himself an emperor. The necromancer,
tired with his importunities, at length assented to his prayer.
He took measures accordingly, and by his potent art caused his
scholar to believe that one province and dignity fell to him after
another, till at length his utmost desires became satisfied. The
magician, however, appeared to be still at his elbow ; and one
day, when the scholar was in the highest exultation at his good
fortune, the master humbly requested him to bestow upon him
some landed possessipn, as a reward for the extraordinary bene-
fit he had conferred. The imaginary emperor cast upon the
necromancer a glance of the utmost disdain and contempt
• Who are you ?' said he. * I really have not the smallest acquaint-
jince with you/ * I am he,' replied the magician, with withering

154 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

severity of countenance and tone, ' that gave you all these things,
and will take them away.* And, saying this, the illusion with
which the poor scholar had been inebriated, immediately
vanished ; and he became what he had before been, and no
more."

The story thus briefly told by Michael Scot afterwards passed
through many hands, and was greatly dilated. In its last form
by the Abb§ Blanchet, it constituted the well-known and agree-
able tale of the Dean of Badajoz. This reverend divine comes
to a sorcerer, and entreats a specimen of his art. The magician
replies that he had met with so many specimens of ingratitude,
that he was resolved to be deluded no more. The dean persists,
and at length overcomes the reluctance of the master. He in-
vites his guest into the parlour, and orders his cook to put two
partridges to the fire, for that the Dean of Badajoz will sup with
him. Presently he begins his incantations ; and the dean be-
comes in imagination by turns a bishop, a cardinal, and a pope.
The magician then claims his reward. Meanwhile the dean, in-
flated with his supposed elevation, turns to his benefactor, and
says, " I have learned with grief that, under pretence of secret
science, you correspond with the prince of darkness. I com-
mand you to repent and abjure ; and in the mean time I order
you to quit the territory of the church in three days, under pain
of being delivered to the secular arm, and the rigour of the
flames." The sorcerer, having been thus treated, presently dis-
solves the incantation, and calls aloud to his cook, " Put down
but one partridge, the Dean of Badajoz does not sup with me
to-night."

[MIRACLE 0F:,THE TUB OF WATER,
This story affords an additional example of the affinity between
the ancient Asiatic and European legends, so as to convince us
that it is nearly impossible that the one should not be in some
way borrowed from the other. There is, in a compilation called
the " Turkish Tales,"f a story.of an infideFSultan of Egypt, who
took the liberty before a learned Mahometan doctor of ridiculing
some of the miracles ascribed to the prophet, as, for example, his
transportation into the seventh heaven, and having ninety thou.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 155

sand conferences with God, while in the mean time a pitcher of
water, which had been thrown down in the first step of his ascent,
was found with the water not all spilled at his return.

The doctor, who had the gift of working miracles, told the
sultan that with his consent he would give him a practical proof
of the possibility of the circumstance related of Mahomet. The
sultan agreed. The doctor, therefore, directed that a huge tub
of water should be brought in, and, while the prince stood before
it with his courtiers around, the holy man bade him plunge his
head into the water, and diraw it out again. The sultan im-
mersed his head, and had no sooner done so, than he found him-
self alone at the foot of a mountain on a desert shore. The
prince first began to rave against the doctor for this piece of
treachery and witchcraft. Perceiving, however, that all his rage
was vain, and submitting himself to the imperiousness of his
situation, he began to seek for some habitable tract. By and by
he discovered people cutting down wood in a forest, and, having
no remedy, he was glad to have recourse to the same employ-
ment. In process of time he was brought to a town ; and there
by great good fortune, after other adventures,, he married a woman
of beauty and wealth, and lived long enough with her for her to
bear him seven sons and seven daughters. He was afterwards
reduced to want, so as to be obliged to ply in the streets as a
porter for his livelihood. One day, as he walked alone on the sea-
shore, ruminating on his hard fate, he was seized with a fit of
devotion, and threw off his clothes, that he might wash himself,
agreeably to the Mahometan custom, previously to saying his
prayers. He had no sooner, however, plunged into the sea,
and raised his head again above water, than he found himself
standing by the side of the tub that had been brought in, with all
the great persons of his court round him, and the holy man close
at his side. He found that the long series of imaginary adven-
tures he had passed through had in reality occupied but one
minute of time.

INSTITUTION OF FRIARS.

About this time a great revolution took place in the state of
literature in Europe. The monks, who at one period consider*

156 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

ably contributed to preserve the monuments of ancient learn-*
ing, memorably fell off in reputation and industry. Their com-
munities by the donations of the pious grew wealthy ; and the
monks themselves inhabited splendid palaces, and became
luxurious, dissipated, and idle. Upon the ruins of their good
fame rose a very extraordinary race of men, called Friars. The
monks professed celibacy, and to have no individual property ;
but the friars abjured all property, both private and in common.
They had no place where to lay their heads, and subsisted as
mendicants upon the alms of their contemporaries. They did
not hide themselves in refectories and dormitories, but lived per-
petually before the public. In the sequel, indeed, they built
Friaries for their residence ] but these were no less distin-
guished for the simplicity and humbleness of their appearance,
than the monasteries were for their grandeur and almost regal
magnificence. The Friars were incessant in preaching and pray-^
ing, voluntarily exposed themselves to the severest hardships,
and were distinguished by a fervour of devotion and charitable
activity that knew no bounds. We might figure them to our-
selves as swallowed up in these duties. But they added to their
merits an incessant earnestness in learning and science. A new
era in intellect and subtlety of mind began with them ; and a
set of the most wonderful men in depth of application, logical
acuteness, and discoveries in science distinguished this period.
They were few indeed in comparison with the world of ignorance
that everywhere surrounded them ; but they were for that reason
only the more conspicuous. They divided themselves principally
into two orders, the Dominicans and Franciscans. And all that
was most illustrious in intellect at this period belonged either to
the one or the other.

ALBERTUS MAGNUS.

Albertus Magnus, a Dominican, was one of the most famous
of these. He was born according to some accounts in the year
1 193, and according to others in 1205. It is reported of him,
that he was naturally very dull, and so incapable of instruction,
that he was on the point of quitting the cloister from despair of
learning what his vocation required, when the blessed virgin ap-

r LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, i^j

peared to him in a vision, and inquired of him in which he
desired to excel, philosophy or divinity. He chose philosophy ;
and the virgin assured him that he should become incomparable
in that, but, as a punishment for not having chosen divinity, he
should sink, before he died, into his former stupidity. It is added
that, after this apparition, he had infinite deal of wit, and ad-
vanced in science with so rapid a progress as utterly to astonish
the masters. He afterwards became Bishop of Ratisbon.

It is related of Albertus, that he made an entire man of brass,
putting together its limbs under various constellations, and oc-
cupying no less than thirty years in its formation. This man
would answer all sorts of questions, and was even employed by
its maker as a domestic. But what is more extraordinary, this
machine is said to have become at length so garrulous, that
Thomas Aquinas, being a pupil of Albertus, and finding himself
perpetually disturbed in his abstrusest speculations by its uncon-
trollable loquacity, in a rage caught up a hammer, and beat it to
pieces. -According to other accounts the man of Albertus Mag-
nus was composed, not of metal, but of flesh and bones like
other men ; but this being afterwards judged to be impossible,
and the virtue of images, rings, and planetary sigils being in
great vogue, it was conceived that this figure was formed of
brass, and indebted for its virtue to certain conjunctions and
aspects of the planets.^

A further extraordinary story is told of Albertus Magnus, well
calculated to exemplify the ideas of magic with which these ages
abounded. William, Earl of Holland, and King of the Romans,
was expected at a certain time to pass through Cologne. Albertus
had set his heart upon obtaining from this prince the cession of
a certain tract of land upon which to erect a convent. The
better to succeed in his application he conceived the following
scheme. He invited the prince on his journey to partake of a
magnificent entertainment. To the surprise of everybody, when
the prince arrived, he found the preparations for the banquet
spread in the open air. It was in the depth of winter, when the
earth was bound in frost, and the whole face of things was

* Naud^, c. i8.

tsS LIVES OF THB NEGHOMANCBRS,

covered with snow. The attendants of the court were mortified,
and began to express their discontent in loud murmurs. No
sooner, however, was the king with Albertus and his courtiers
seated at table, than the snow instantly disappeared, the tem-
• perature of summer showed itself,'and the sun burst forth with a
dazzling splendour. The ground became covered with the richest
verdure ; the trees were clothed at once with foliage, flowers and
fruits ; and a vintage of the richest grapes, accompanied with a
ravishing odour, invited the spectators to partake. A thousand
birds sang on every branch. A train of pages showed them-
selves, fresh and graceful in person and attire, and were ready
diligently to supply the wants of all, while every one was struck
with astonishment as to who they were and whence they
came. The guests were obliged to throw off their upper gar-
ments the better to cool themselves. The whole assembly was
delighted with their entertainment, and Albertus easily gained
his suit of the king. Presently after, the banquet disappeared ;
all was wintry and solitary as before ; the snow lay thick upon
the ground ; and the guests in all haste snatched up the gar-
ments they had laid aside, and hurried into the apartments,
that by numerous fires on the blazing hearth they might coun-
teract the dangerous chill which threatened to seize on their
limbs.^

ROGER BACON,
Roger Bacon, of whom extraordinary stories of magic have
been told, and who was about twenty years younger than Albertus,
was one of the rarest geniuses that have existed on earth. He
was a Franciscan friar. He wrote grammars of the Latin,
Greek, and Hebrew languages. He was profound in the science
of optics. He explained the nature of burning-glasses, and of
glasses which magnify and diminish, the microscope and the
telescope. He discovered the composition of gunpowder. He
ascertained the length of the solar year ; and his theory was
brought into general use, but upon a narrow scale, by Pope
Gregory XIII., nearly three hundred years after his death.«

' Johannes de Becka, apud Trithemii Chronica, ann. 1254.
* Freind, History of Physick, vol, ii., p. 234 to 239.

But for all these discoveries he underwent a series of the most
bitter persecutions. It was itnputed to him by the superiors of
his order that the improvements he suggested in natural philoso-
phy were the effects of magic, and were suggested to him through
ati intercourse with infernal spirits. They forbade him to com-
municate any of his speculations. They wasted his frame with
rigorous fasting, often restricting him to a diet of bread and
water, and prohibited all strangers to have access to him. Yet
he went on indefatigably in pursuit of the secrets of nature.* At
length Clement IV., to whom he appealed, procured him a con-
siderable degree of liberty. But, after the death of that pontiff,
Jie was again put under confinement, and continued in that state
for a further period of ten years. He was liberated but a short
time before his death.

Freind says,* that, among other ingenious contrivances, he put
statues in motion, and drew articulate sounds from a brazen
head, not, however, by magic, but by an artificial application of
the principles of natural philosophy. This probably furnished a
foundation for the tale of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungy, which
was one of the earliest productions to which the art of printing
was applied in England. These two persons are said to have
entertained the project of inclosing England with a wall, so as to
render it inaccessible to any invader. They accordingly raised
the devil, as the person best able to inform them how this was to
be done. The devil advised them to make a brazen head, with all
the internal structure and organs of a human head. The construc-
tion would cost them much time ; and they must then wait with
patience till the faculty of speech descended upon it. It would
finally, however, become an oracle, and, if the question were pro-
pounded to it, would teach them the solution of their problem.
The friars spent seven years in bringing the structure to per-
fection, and then waited day after day, in expectation that it
would utter articulate sounds. At length nature became ex-
hausted in them, and they lay down to sleep having first given,
it strictly in charge to a servant of theirs, clownish in nature,
but of strict fidelity, that he should awaken them the moment

' Bacon, Epist. ad Clemen. IV. ' Ubi supra.

i6o LIVES OP TUB NECJROMANCEHlS,

the image began to speak. That period arrived. The head
uttered sounds, but such as the clown judged unworthy of
notice. " Time is !" it said. No notice was taken ; and a long
pause ensued. " Time was P A similar pause and no notice.
** Time is passed 1" And the moment these words were uttered,
a tremendous storm ensued, with -thunder and lightning, and the
head was shivered into a thousand pieces. Thus the experiment
of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungy came to nothing.

THOMAS AQUINAS.

Thomas Aquinas, who has likewise been brought under the
imputation of magic, was one of the profoundest scholars and
subtlest logicians of his day. He also furnishes a remarkable
instance of the ascendant which the friars at that time obtained
over the minds of ingenuous young men smitten with the thirst
of knowledge. He was a youth of illustrious birth, and received
the rudiments of his education under the monks of Monte Cas-
sino, and in the University of Naples. But, not contented with
these advantages, he secretly entered himself into the society of
Preaching Friars, or Dominicans, at seventeen years of age.
His mother, being indignant that he should thus take the vow of
poverty, and sequester himself from the world for life, employed
every means in her power to induce him to alter his purpose,
but in vain. The friars, to deliver him from her importunities,
removed him from Naples to Terracina, from Terracina to Anag-
nia, and from Anagnia to Rome. His mother followed him in
all these changes of residence, but was not permitted so much
as to see him. At length she spirited up his two elder brothers
to seize him by force. They waylaid him in his road to Paris,
whither he was sent to complete his course of instruction, and
carried him off to the Castle of Aquino, where he had been
born. Here he was confined for two years ; but he found a way
to correspond with the superiors of his order, and finally escaped
from a window in the castle. St. Thomas Aquinas (for he was
canonised after his death) exceeded perhaps all men that ever
existed in the severity and strictness of his metaphysical dis-
quisitions, and thus acquired the name of the Seraphic Doctor.

It was to be expected that a man, who thus immersed himself

LiVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. i6i

in the depths of thought, should be an inexorable enemy to
noise and interruption. We have seen that he dashed to pieces
the artificial man of brass, that Albertus Magnus, who was his
tutor, had spent thirty years in bringing to perfection, being im-
pelled to this violence by its perpetual and unceasing garrulity.*
It is further said, that his study being placed in a great thorough-
fare, where the grooms were all day long exercising their horses^
he found it necessary to apply a remedy to this nuisance. He
made by the laws of magic a small horse of brass, which he
buried two or three feet under ground in the midst of this high-
way ; and, having done so, no horse would any longer pass along
the road. It was in vain that the grooms with whip and spur
sought to conquet their repugnance. They were finally com -
pelled to give up the attempt, and to choose another place for
their daily exercise."

It has further been sought to fix the imputation of magic upon
Thomas Aquinas by imputing to him certain books written on
that science ; but these are now acknowledged to be spurious.3

PETER OF APONO. ]i

Peter of Apono, so-called from a village of that name in the
vicinity of Padua, where he was born in the year 1250, was an
eminent philosopher, mathematician and astrologer, but especi-
ally excelled in physic. Finding that science at a low ebb in his
native country, he resorted to Paris, where it especially flourished;
and after a time returning home, exercised his art with extra-
ordinary success, and by this means accumulated great wealth.

But all his fame and attainments were poisoned to him by the
accusation of magic. Among other things he was said to possess
seven spirits, each of them inclosed in a crystal vessel, from
whom he received every information he desired in the seven
liberal arts. He was further reported to have had the extra-
ordinary faculty of causing the money he expended in his dis-
bursements immediately to come back into his own purse. He
was besides of a hasty and revengeful temper. In consequence
of this it happened to him, that, having a neighbour, who had

* See p, 157, = Naud^, cap, 17. 3 ibid,

II

162 LIVES OF THE NkCkOMANCERSi

an admirable spring of water in his garden, and who was accus-*
tomed to suffer the physician to send for a daily supply, but who
for some displeasure or inconvenience withdrew his permission,
Peter d'Apono, by the aid of the devil, removed the spring from
the garden in which it had flowed, and turned it to waste in the
public street. For some of these accusations he was called to ac-
count by the tribunal of the inquisition. While he was upon his
trial, however, the unfortunate man died. But so unfavourable
was the judgment of the inquisitors respecting him^ that they
decreed that his bones should be dug up, and publicly burned;
Some of his friends got intimation of this, and saved him from
the impending disgrace by removing his remains. Disappointed
in this, the inquisitors proceeded to bum him in effigy.

I L ENGLISH LA W OF HIGH TREASON.

It may seem strange that in a treatise concerning necro-
mancy we should have occasion to speak of the English law of
high treason. But on reflection, perhaps, it may appear not alto-
gether alien to the subject. This crime is ordinarily considered
by our lawyers as limited and defined by the statute of 25 Ed-
ward III. As Blackstone has observed, "By the ancient com-
mon law there was a great latitude left in the breast of the
judges, to determine what was treason, or not so i whereby the
creatures of tyrannical power had opportunity to create abun-
dance of constructive treasons ; that is, to raise, by forced and
arbitrary constructions, oflences into the crime and punishment
of treason which were never suspected to be such. To prevent
these inconveniences, the statute of 25 Edward III. was made.''^
This statute divides treason into seven distinct branches j and
the first and chief of these is, " when a man doth compass or
imagine the death of our lord the king."

Now the first circumstance that strikes us in this affair is, why
the crime was not expressed in more perspicuous and appropriate
language ? Why, for example, was it not said, that the first and
chief branch of treason was to "kill the king?" Or, if that
limitation was not held to be sufficiently ample, could it not

^ Commentaries, bookiv. chap. vi.

LIVES OF THE i^ECMMAl^CEkS. \t%

have been added, it is treason to " attempt, intend, or contrive
to kill the king ?" We are apt to make much too large an allow-
ance for what is considered as the vague and obsolete language
of our ancestors. Logic was the element in which the scholars
of what are called the dark ages were especially at home. It
was at that period that the description of human geniuses called
the Schoolmen principally flourished. The writers who pre-
ceded the Christian era possessed in an extraordinary degree
the gift of imagination and invention. But they had little to
boast on the score of arrangement, and discovered little skill in
the strictness of an accurate deduction. Meanwhile the School-
men had a surprising subtlety in weaving the web of an argu-
ment, and arriving by a close deduction, through a multitude of
steps, to a sound and irresistible conclusion. Our lawyers to a
certain degree formed themselves on the discipline of the
Schoolmen. Nothing can be more forcibly contrasted, than the
mode of pleading among the ancients, and that which has cha-
racterised the processes of the moderns; The pleadings of the
ancients were praxises of the art of oratorical persuasion ; the
pleadings of the moderns sometimes, though rarely, deviate into
oratory, but principally consist in dextrous subtleties upon words,
or a nice series of deductions, the whole contexture of which is
endeavoured to be woven into one indissoluble substance:
Several striking examples have been preserved of the mode of
pleading in the reign of Edward II., in which the exceptions
taken for the defendant, and the replies supporting the mode of
proceeding on behalf of the plaintiff, in no respect fall short of
the most admired shifts, quirks and subtleties of the great
lawyers of later times.*

It would be certainly wrong, therefore, to consider the legal
phrase, to '* compass or imagine the death of the king," as
meaning the same thing as to " kill, or intend to kill " him. At
all events we may take it for granted, that to ** compass " does
not mean to accomplish, but rather to " take in hand, to go
about to effect." There is, therefore, no form of words here for-
bidding to " kill the king.'' The phrase, to " imagine,'* does not

< Life of Chaucer, c. xviii.

11—3

id4 LIVES OP THE NECROmANCMS.

appear less startling. What is, to a proverb, more lawless than
imagination ?

" Evil into the mind of God or man

May come and go, so unapproved, and leave .

No spot or blame behind. "

What can be more tjnrannical, than an inquisition into the sports
and freaks of fancy ? What more unsusceptible of detection or
evidence ? How many imperceptible shades of distinction between
the guilt and innocence that characterise them I — Meanwhile the
force and propriety of these terms will strikingly appear, if we
refer them to the popular ideas of witchcraft Witches were
understood to have the power of destroying life, without the
necessity of approaching the person who was to be destroyed ,
or producing any consciousness in him of the crime about to be
perpetrated. One method was by exposing an image of wax to
the action of fire; while in proportion as the image wasted
away, the life of the individual who was the object contrived
against, was undermined and destroyed. Another was by in-
cantations and spells. Either of these might fitly be called the
'^ compassing or imagining the death." Imagination is, besidfe
this, the peculiar province of witchcraft. And in these pre-
tended hags the faculty is no longer destiltory and erratic.
Conscious of their power, they are supposed to have subjected
it to system and discipline. They apply its secret and track-
less energy with an intentness and a vigour, which ordinary
mortals may in vain attempt to emulate in an application of the
force of inert matter, or of the different physical powers by-
means of which such stupendous effects have often been pro-
duced. — How universal and familiar then must we consider the
ideas of witchcraft to have been before language which properly
describes the secret practices of such persons, and is not appro-
priate to any other, could have been found to insinuate itself
into the structure of the most solemn act of our legislature, that
act which beyond all others was intended to narrow or shut out
the subtle and dangerous inroads of arbitrary power ?

ZIITO.
Very extraordinary things are related of Ziito, a sorcerer, in

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, \^^

the court of Wenceslaus, King of Bohemia and afterwards Em-
peror of Germany, in the latter part of the fourteenth century.
This is, perhaps, all things considered, the most wonderful speci-
men of magical power any where to be found. It is gravely
recorded by Dubravius, Bishop of Olmutz, in his " History of
Bohemia." It was publicly exhibited on occasion of the mar-
riage of Wenceslaus with Sophia, daughter of the Elector Pala-
tine of Bavaria, before a vast assembled multitude.

The father-in-law of the king, well aware of the bridegroom's
known predilection for theatrical exhibitions and magical illusions,
brought with him to Prague, the capital of Wenceslaus, a whole
waggon load of morrice-dancers and jugglers, who made their
appearance among the royal retinue. Meanwhile Ziito, the
favourite magician of the king, took his place obscurely among
the ordinary spectators. He, however, immediately arrested the
attention of the strangers, being remarked for his extraordinary
deformity, and a mouth that stretched completely from ear to ear.
Ziito was for some time engaged in quietly observing the tricks
and sleights that were exhibited. At length, while the chief magi-
cian of the Elector Palatine was still busily employed in show-
ing some of the most admired specimens of his art, the Bohe-
mian, indignant at what appeared to him the bungling exhibitions
of his brother artist, came forward, and reproached him with the
unskilfulness of his performances. The two professors presently
fell into warm debate. Ziito, provoked at the insolence of his
rival, made no more ado but swallowed him whole before the
multitude, attired as he was, all but his shoes, which he objected
to because they were dirty. He then retired for a short while to
a closet, and presently returned, leading the magician along with
him.

Having thus disposed of his rival, Ziito proceeded to exhibit
the wonders of his art. He showed himself first in his proper
shape, and then in those of different persons successively, with
countenances and a stature totally dissimilar to his own; at one
time splendidly attired in robes of purple and silk, and then in
the twinkling of an eye in coarse linen and a clownish coat of
frieze. He would proceed along the field with a smooth and un-
dulating motion without changing the posture of a limb, for all

X66 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

the world as if he were carried along in a ship. He would keep
pace with the king's chariot, in a car drawn by barn>door fowls.
He also amused the king's guests as they sat at table, by causing,
when they stretched out their hands to the different dishes,
sometimes their hands to turn into the cloven feet of an ox, and
at other times into the hoofs of a horse. He would clap on them
the antlers of a deer, so that, when they put their heads out at
window to see some sight that was going by, they could by no
means draw them back again ; while he in the meantime feasted
on the savoury cates that had been spread before them, at his
leisure.

At one time he pretended to be in want of money, and to task
his wits to devise the means to procure it. On such an occasion
he took up a handful of grains of corn, and presently gave them
the form and appearance of thirty hogs well fatted for the
market. He drove these hogs to the residence of one Michael,
a rich dealer, but who was remarked for being penurious and
thrifty in his bargains. He Offered them to Michael for what-
ever price he should judge reasonable. The bargain was pre-
sently struck, Ziito at the same time warning the purchaser that
he should on no account drive them to the river to drink.
Michael, however, paid no attention to this advice ; and the
hogs no sooner arrived at the river, than they turned into grains
of com as before. The dealer, greatly enraged at this trick,
sought high and low for the seller that he might be revenged on
him. At length he found him in a vintner's shop, seemingly in
a gloomy and absent frame of mind, reposing himself, with his
legs stretched out on a form. The dealer called out to him, but
he seemed not to hear. Finally he seized Ziito by one foot,
plucking at it with all his might. The foot came away with the
leg and thigh ; and Ziito screamed out, apparently in great agony.
He seized Michael by the nape of the neck, and dragged him
before a judge. Here the two set up their separate complaints,
Michael for the fraud that had been committed on him, and Ziito
for the irreparable injury he had suffered in his person. From
this adventure came the proverb, frequent in the days of the
historian, speaking of a person who had made an improvident

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 167

bargain, '^ He has made just such a purchase as Michael did with
his hogs."

TRANSMUTATION OF METALS.

Among the different pursuits which engaged the curiosity of
active minds in these unenlightened ages, was that of the trans-
mutation of the more ordinary metals into gold and silver. This
art, though not properly of necromantic nature, was, however,
elevated by its professors, by means of an imaginary connection
between it and astrology, and even between it and an intercourse
with invisible spirits. They believed that their investigations
could not be successfully prosecuted but under favourable as-
spects of the planets, and that it was even indispensable to them
to obtain supernatural aid.

In proportion as the pursuit of transmutation, and the search
after the elixir of immortality grew into vogue, the adepts be-
came desirous of investing them with the venerable garb of an-
tiquity. They endeavoured to carry up the study to the time of
Solomon \ and there were not wanting some who imputed it to
the first father of mankind. They were desirous to track its
footsteps in Ancient Egypt ; and they found a mythological re-
presentation of it in the expedition of Jason after the golden
fleece, and in the cauldron by which Medea restored the father
of Jason to his original youth.^ But, as has already been said,
the first unquestionable mention of the subject is to be referred
to the time of Dioclesian.* From that period traces of the
studies of the alchemists from time to time regularly discover
themselves.

The study of chemistry and its supposed invaluable results
was assiduously cultivated by Geber and the Arabians,

ARTEPHIUS.

Artephius is one of the earliest names that occur among the
students who sought the philosopher's stone. Of him extraordi-
nary things are told. He lived about the year 1 130, and wrote a
book of the " Art of Prolonging Human Life," in which he pro-
fesses to have already attained the age of one thousand and

' Wotton, Reflections on Learning, chap, x. ^' See p. 18,

i68 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

twenty-five years.* He must by this account have been born
about one hundred years after our Saviour. He professed to
have visited the infernal regions, and there to have seen Tan-
talus seated on a throne of gold. He is also said by some to be
the same person whose life has been written by Philostratus
under the name of ApoUonius of Tyana.* He wrote a book on
the philosopher's stone, which was published in Latin and French
at Paris in the year 1612.

RAYMOND LULU,

Among the European students of these interesting secrets a
foremost place is to be assigned to Raymond Lulli and Arnold
of Villeneuve.

LuUi was undoubtedly a man endowed in a very eminent de-
gree with the powers of intellect. He was a native of the island
of Majorca, and was born in the year 1234. He is said to have
passed his early years in profligacy and dissipation, but to have
been reclaimed by the accident of falling in love with a young
woman afflicted with a cancer. This circumstance induced him
to apply himself intently to the study of chemistry and medicine,
with a view to discover a cure for her complaint, in which he
succeeded. He afterwards entered into the community of Fran-
ciscan friars.

Edward I. was one of the most extraordinary princes that
ever sat on a throne. He revived the study of the Roman civil
law with such success as to have merited the title of the English
Justinian. He was no less distinguished as the patron of arts
and letters. He invited to England Guido dalla Colonna, the
author of the " Troy Book," and Raymond Lulli. This latter-
was believed in his time to have prosecuted his studies with such
success as to have discovered the elixir vitce^ by means of which
he could keep off the assaults of old age, at least for centuries,
and the philosopher's stone. He is affirmed by these means to
have supplied to Edward L six millions of money, to enable
him to carry on war against the Turks.

But he was not only indefatigable in the pursuit of natura)

« Plographie Universelle. Naud^,

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 169

science. He was also seized with an invincible desire to convert
the Mahometans to the Christian faith. For this purpose he
entered earnestly upon the study of the Oriental languages, rie
endeavoured to prevail on different princes of Europe to concur
in his plan, and to erect colleges for the purpose, but without
success. He at length set out alone upon his enterprise, but
niet with small encouragement He penetrated into Africa and
Asia. He made few converts, and was with difficulty suffered to
depart, under a solemn injunction that he should not return.
But LuUi chose to obey God rather than man, and ventured a
second time. The Mahometans became exasperated with his
obstinacy, and are said to have stoned him to death at the age of
eighty years. His body was, however, transported to his native
place ; and miracles are reported to have been worked at his
tomb.*

Raymond LuUi is beside famous for what he was pleased to
style his Great Art. The ordinary accounts, however, that are
given of this art assume a style of burlesque, rather than of
philosophy. He is said to have boasted that by means of it he
could enable anyone to argue logically on any subject for a whole
day together, independently of any previous study on the sub-
ject in debate. To the details of the process Swift seems to
have been indebted for one of the humorous projects described
by him in his voyage to Laputa. LuUi recommended that certain
general terms of logic, metaphysics, ethics or theology should
first be collected. These were to be inscribed separately upon
square pieces of parchment. They were then to be placed on
a frame so constructed that by turning a handle they might re-
volve freely, and form endless combinations. One term would
stand for a subject, and another for a predicate. The student
was then diligently to inspect the different combinations that
fortuitously arose, and exercising the subtlety of his faculties to
select such as he should find best calculated for his purposes.
He would thus carry on the process of his debate ; and an ex-
traordinary felicity would occasionally arise, suggesting the
most ingenious hints, and leading on to the most important di§r

» Moreri.

170 LIVES OF THB NECROMANCERS.

coveries/ If a man with the eminent faculties which Lulli
otherwise appeared to have -possessed really laid down the
rules of such an art, all he intended by it must have been to
satirize the gravity with which the learned doctors of his time
carried on their grave disputations in mood and figure, having
regard only to the severity of the rule by which they debated,
and holding themselves totally indifferent whether they made
any real advances in the discovery of truth.

ARNOLD OF VILLENEUVE.

Arnold of Villeneuve, who lived about the same time, was a
man of eminent attainments. He made a great proficiency in
Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic. He devoted himself in a high
degree to astrology, and was so confident in his art, as to ven-
ture to predict that the end of the world would occur in a few
years ; but he lived to witness the fallaciousness of his prophecy.
He had much reputation as a physician. He appears to have
been a bold thinker. He maintained that deeds of charity were
of more avail than the sacrifice of the mass, and that no one
would be damned hereafter, but such as were proved to afford an
example of immoral conduct. Like air the men of these times
who were distinguished by the profoundness of their studies, he
was accused of magic. For this, or upon a charge of heresy,
he was brought under the prosecution of the inquisition. But
he was alarmed by the fate of Peter of Apono, and by recanta-
tion or some other mode of prudent contrivance was fortunate
enough to escape. He is one^of the persons to whom the writing
of the book, De Tribus Itnpostoribus^ Of the Three Impostors
(Moses, Jesus Christ, and Mahomet) was imputed I"*

ENGLISH LAWS RESPECTING TRANSMUTATION,
So great an alarm was conceived about this time respecting
the art of transmutation, that an act of Parliament was passed
in the fifth year of Henry IV., 1404, which Lord Coke states as
the shortest of our statutes, determining that the making of gold
or silver shall be deemed felony. This law is said to have

« Enfield, History of Philosophy, book viii. chap. i. ' Moreri.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 171

resulted from the fear at that time entertained by the houses of
lords and commons, lest the executive power, finding itself by
these means enabled to increase the revenue of the crown to any
degree it pleased, should disdain to ask aid from the legislature ;
and in consequence should degenerate into tyranny and arbitrary
power.*

George Ripley, of Ripley in the county of York, is mentioned,
towards the latter part of the fifteenth century, as having dis-
covered the philosopher's stone, and by its means contributed
one hundred thousand pounds to the knights of Rhodes, the
better to enable them to carry on their war against the Turks.*

About this time, however, the tide appears to have turned, and
the alarm respecting the multiplication of the precious metals so
greatly to have abated, that patents were issued in the thirty-
fifth year of Henry VI., for the encouragement of such as were
disposed to seek the universal medicine, and to endeavour the
transmutation of inferior metals into gold.3

REVIVAL OF LETTERS,

While these thing were going on in Europe, the period was
gradually approaching, when the energies of the human mind
were to loosen its shackles, and its independence was ultimately
to extinguish those delusions and that superstition which had so
long enslaved it. Petrarch, bom in the year 1304, was deeply
impregnated with a passion for classical lore, was smitten with
the love of repubhcan institutions, and especially distinguished
himself for an adoration of Homer. Dante, a more sublime and
original genius than Petrarch, was his contemporary. About
the same time Boccaccio in his Decamerone gave at once to
Italian prose that purity and grace, which none of his successors
in the career of literature have ever been able to excel. And in
our own island, Chaucer, with a daring hand redeemed his native
tongue from the disuse and ignominy into which it had fallen, and
poured out the immortal strains that the genuine lovers of the
English tongue have ever since perused with delight, while those

? Watson, Chemical Essays, vol. i. * Fuller, Worthies pf England,
} "Watson, ubi supra^ ' ^

172 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

who are discouraged by its apparent crabbedness, have yet grown
familiar with his thoughts in the smoother and more modern
versification of Dryden and Pope. From that time the prin-
ciples of true taste have been more or less cultivated, while with
equal career independence of thought and an ardent spirit of
discovery have continually proceeded, and made a rapid advance
towards the perfect day.

But the dawn of literature and intellectual freedom were still
a long time ere they produced their full effect. The remnant of
the old woman clung to the heart with a tenacious embrace.
Three or four centuries elapsed, while yet the belief in sorcery
and witchcraft was ahve in certain classes of society. And then,
as is apt to occur in such cases, the expiring folly occasionally
gave tokens of its existence with a convulsive vehemence, and
became only the more picturesque and impressive through the
strong contrasts of lights and shadows that attended its mani-
festations.

yOAN OF ARC.

One of the most memorable stories on record is that of Joan
of Arc, commonly called the Maid of Orleans. Henry V. of
England won the decisive battle of Agincourt in the year 141 5,
and some time after concluded a treaty with the reigning King of
France, by which he was recognised, in case of that king's
death, as heir to the throne. Henry V. died in the year 1422,
and Charles VI. of France in less than two months after.
Henry VI. was only nine months old at the time of his father's
death ; but such was the deplorable state of France, that he was
in the same year proclaimed king in Paris, and for some years
seemed to have every prospect of a fortunate reign. John, Duke
of Bedford, the king's uncle, was declared regent of France :
the son of Charles VI. was reduced to the last extremity ; Or-
leans was the last strong town in the heart of the kingdom which
held out in his favour ; and that place seemed on the point of
surrendering to the conqueror.

In this fearful crisis appeared Joan of Arc, and in the most
incredible manner turned the whole tide of affairs. She was a
servant in a poor inn at Domremi, and was accustomed to per-

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. J73

form the coarsest offices, and in particular to ride the horses to
a neighbouring stream to water. Of course the situation of
France and her hereditary king formed the universal subject of
conversation ; and Joan became deeply impressed with the
lamentable state of her country and the misfortunes of her king.
By dint of perpetual meditation, and feeling in her breast the
promptings of energy and enterprise, she conceived the idea that
she was destined by heaven to be the deliverer of France. Agree-
ably to the state of intellectual knowledge at that period, she
persuaded herself that she saw visions, and held communication
with the saints. She had conversations with St. Margaret, and
St. Catherine of P'ierbois. They told her that she was com-
missioned by God to raise the siege of Orleans, and to conduct
Charles VII. to his coronation at Rheims. St. Catherine com-
manded her to demand a sword which was in her church at
Fierbois, which the Maid described by particular tokens, though
she had never seen it. She then presented herself to Baudri-
court, governor of the neighbouring town of Vaucouleurs, tell-
ing him her commission, and requiring him to send her to the
king at Chinon. Baudricourt at first made light of her applica-
tion ; but her importunity and the ardour she expressed at length
excited him. He put on her a man's attire, gave her arms, and
sent her under an escort of two gentlemen and their attendants
to Chinon. Here she immediately addressed the king in person,
who had purposely hid himself behind his courtiers that she
might not know him. She then delivered her message, and
offered in the name of the Most High to raise the siege of Or-
leans, and conduct King Charles to Rheims to be anointed. As
a further confirmation she is said to have revealed to the king,
before a few select friends, a secret which nothing but divine in-
spiration could have discovered to her.

Desperate as was then the state of affairs, Charles and his
ministers immediately resolved to seize the occasion that offered,
and put forward Joan as an instrument to revive the prostrate
courage of his subjects. He had no sooner determined on this,
than he pretended to submit the truth of her mission to the most
rigorous trial. He called together an assembly of theologians
and doctors, who rigorously examined Joan, and pronounced in

i74 UVES OP THE NMCI^OMANCMRS.

her favour. He referred the question to the parliament of
Poitiers ; and they, who met persuaded that she was an im-
postor, became convinced of her inspiration. She was mounted
on a high-bred steed, furnished with a consecrated banner, and
marched, escorted by a body of five thousand men, to the relief
of Orleans. The French, strongly convinced by so plain an
interposition of heaven, resumed the courage to which they had
long been strangers. Such a phenomenon was exactly suited to
the superstition and credulity of the age. The English were
staggered with the rumours that everywhere went before her, and
struck with a degree of apprehension and terror that they could
not shake off. The garrison, informed of her approach, made a
sally on the other side of the town ; and Joan and her convoy
entered without opposition. She displayed her standard in the
market-place, and was received as a celestial deliverer.

She appears to have been endowed with a prudence, not in-
ferior to her courage and spirit of enterprise. With great docility
she caught the hints of the commanders by whom she was sur-
rounded ; and, convinced of her own want of experience and
skill, delivered them to the forces as the dictates of heaven.
Thus the knowledge and discernment of the generals were
brought into play, at the same time that their suggestions ac-
quired new weight, when falling from the lips of the heaven-in-
structed heroine. A second convoy arrived ; the waggons and
troops passed between the redoubts of the English ; while a dead
silence and astonishment reigned among the forces so lately
enterprising and resistless. Joan now called on the garrison no
longer to stand upon the defensive, but boldly to attack the army
of the besiegers. She took one redoubt and then another. The
English, overwhelmed with amazement, scarcely dared to lift a
hand against hen 'their veteran genefals became spell-bound
and powerless ; and their soldiers were driven before the pro-
phetess like a flock of sheep. The siege was raised.

Joan followed the English garrison to a fortified town which
they fixed on as their place of retreat. The siege lasted ten days ;
the place was taken ; and all the English within it made prisoners.
The late victorious forces now concentrated themselves at Patay
in the Orleanois; Joan advanced to meet them. The battle lasted

llV'BS OP THE hMCROMANCMHS. tfi

hot a moment ; it was rather a flight than a combat ; Fastolfcj
one of the bravest of our commanders, threw down his arms, and
ran for his life ; Talbot and Scales, the other generals, were made
prisoners. The siege of Orleans was raised on the eighth of May^
1429 ; the battle of Patay was fought on the tenth of the follow-
ing month. Joan was at this time twenty-two years of age.

This extraordinary turn having been given to the affairs of
the kingdom, Joan next insisted that the king should march to
Rheims, in order to his being crowned. Rheims lay in a direc-
tion expressly through the midst of the enemies* garrisons.
But every thing yielded to the marvellous fortune that attended
upon the heroine. Troyes opened its gates ; Chalons followed
the example ; Rheims sent a deputation with the keys of the
city, which met Charles on his march. The proposed solemnity
took place amidst th^ ecstacies and enthusiastic shouts of his
people. It was no sooner over, than Joan stepped forward.
She said, she had now performed the whole of what God had
commissioned her to do ; she was satisfied ; she intreated the
king to dismiss her to the obscurity from which she had sprung.

The ministers and generals of France, however, found Joan
too useful an instrument, to be willing to part with her thus
early ; and she yielded to their earnest expostulations. Under
her guidance they assailed Laon, Soissons, Chateau Thierry,
Provins, and many other places, and took them one after
another. She threw herself into Compidgne, which was be-
sieged by the Duke of Burgundy in conjunction with certain
English commanders. The day after her arrival she headed a
sally against the enemy ; twice she repelled them ; but, finding
their numbers increase every moment with fresh reinforcements,
she directed a retreat. Twice she returned upon her pursuers,
and made them recoil, the third time she was less fortunate.
She found herself alone, surrounded by the enemy ; and after
having enacted prodigies of valour, she was compelled to sur-
render a prisoner. This happened on the twenty-fifth of May,

1430.

It remained to be dietermined what should be the fate of this
admirable woman. Both friends and enemies agreed that her
career had been attended with a supernatural power. The

176 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

French, who were so infinitely indebted to her achievements,
and who owed the sudden and glorious reverse of their afifairs
to her alone, were convinced that she was immediately com-
missioned by God, and vied with each other in reciting the
miraculous phenomena which marked every step in her progress.
The English, who saw all the victorious acquisitions of Henry V.
crumbling from their grasp, were equally impressed with the
manifest miracle, but imputed all her good-fortune to a league
with the prince of darkness. They said that her boasted visions
were so many delusions of the devil. They determined' to bring
her to trial for the tremendous crimes of sorcery and witch-
craft They believed that, if she were once convicted and led
out to execution, the prowess and valour which had hitherto
marked their progress would return to them, and that they should
obtain the same superiority over their disheartened foes. The
devil, who had hitherto been her constant ally, terrified at the
spectacle of the flames that consumed her, would instantly
return to the infernal regions, an.d leave the field open to Eng-
lish enterprise and energy, and to the interposition of God and
his saints.

An accusation was prepared against her, and all the solem-
nities of a public trial were observed. But the proofs were so
weak and unsatisfactory, and Joan, though oppressed and treated
with the utmost severity, displayed so much acuteness and pre-
sence of mind, that the court, not venturing to proceed to the
last extremity, contented themselves with sentencing her to per-
petual imprisonment, and to be allowed no other nourishment
than bread and water for life. Before they yielded to this miti*
gation of punishment, they caused her to sign with her mark a
recantation of her offences. She acknowledged that the enthu-
siasm that had guided her was an illusion, and promised never
more to listen to its suggestions.

The hatred of her enemies, however, was not yet appeased.
They determined in some way to entrap her. They had clothed
her in a female garb ; they had insidiously laid in her way the
habiliments of a man. The fire smothered in the bosom of the
maid, revived at the sight ; she was alone ; she caught up the
garments, and one by one adjusted them to her person. Spies

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 177

were set upon her to watch for this event ; they burst into the
apartment. What she had done was construed into no less offence
than that of a relapsed heretic ; there was no more pardon for
such confirmed deUnquency ; she was brought out to be burned
alive in the market-place of Rouen, and she died embracing a
crucifix, and in her last moments calling upon the name of
Jesus. A few days more than twelve months had elapsed be-
tween the period of her first captivity and her execution.

BLEANOR COBHAM, DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER. ' '

This was a period in which the ideas of witchcraft had caught
fast hold of the minds of mankind ; and those accusations, which
by the enlightened part of the species would now be regarded as
worthy only of contempt, were then considered as charges ot
the most flagitious nature. While John, Duke of Bedford, the
eldest uncle of King Henry VI., was regent of France, Hum-
phrey of Gloucester, next brother to Bedford, was Lord Protector
of the realm of England. Though Henry was now nineteen
years of age, yet as he was a prince of slender capacity, Hum-
phrey still continued to discharge the functions of sovereignty.
He was eminently endowed with popular qualities, and was a
favourite with the majority of the nation. He had, however,
many enemies, one of the chief of whom was Henry Beaufort,
great-uncle to the king, and Cardinal of Winchester. One of
the means employed by this prelate to undermine the power of
Humphrey, consisted in a charge of witchcraft brought against
Eleanor Cobham, his wife.

This woman had probably yielded to the delusions which art-
ful persons, who saw into the weakness of her character, sought to
practise upon her. She was the second wife of Humphrey, and he
was suspected to have indulged in undue familiarity with her,be-
fore he was a widower. His present duchess was reported to have
had recourse to witchcraft in the first instance, by way of securing
his wayward inclinations. The Duke of Bedford had died in
1435 ; and Humphrey now, in addition to the actual exercise of
the powers of sovereignty, was next heir to the crown in case of
the king's decease. This weak and licentious woman, being now
Duchess of Gloucester, and wife to the Lord Protector, directed

12

178 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

her ambition to the higher title and prerogatives of a queen, and,
by way of feeding her evil passions, called to her counsels Mar-
gery Jourdain, commonly called the Witch of Eye, Roger Boling-
broke, an astrologer and supposed magician, Thomas Southwel,
Canon of St. Stephen's, and one John Hume, or Hun, a priest.
These persons frequently met the duchess in secret cabal. They
were accused of calling up spirits from the infernal world ; and
they made an image of wax, which they slowly consumed before
a fire, expecting that, as the image gradually wasted away, so
the constitution and life of the poor king would decay and finally
perish.

Hume, or Hun, is supposed to have turned informer, and upon
his information several of these persons were taken into custody.
After previous examination, on the twenty-fifth of July, 144 1,
Bolingbroke was placed upon a scaffold before the cross of St.
Paul's, with a chair curiously painted, which was supposed to be
one of his implements of necromancy, and dressed in mystical
attire, and there, before the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Car-
dinal of Winchester, and several other bishops, made abjuration
of all his unlawful arts.

A short time after, the Duchess of Gloucester, having fled to
the sanctuary at Westminster, her case was referred to the same
high persons, and Bolingbroke was brought forth to give evidence
against her. She was of consequence committed to custody in
the castle of Leeds, near Maidstone, to take her trial in the
month of October. A commission was directed to the lord trea-
surer, several noblemen, and certain judges of both benches, to
inquire into all manner of treasons, sorceries, and other things
that might be hurtful to the king's person, and Bolingbroke and-
Southwel as principals, and the Duchess of Gloucester as acces-
sory, were brought before them. Margery Jourdain was arraigned
at the same time ; and she, as a witch and relapsed heretic, was
condemned to be burned in Smithfield. The Duchess of Glou-
cester was sentenced to do penance on three several days, walk-
ing through the streets of London, with a lighted taper in her
hand, attended by the lord mayor, the sheriffs, and a select body
of the livery, and then to be banished for life^to the Isle of Man. I

i

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 179

Thomas Southwel died in prison ; and Bolingbroke was hanged
at Tyburn on the eighteenth of November.

RICHARD III, '

An event occurred not very long after this, which deserves to
be mentioned, as being well calculated to show how deep an im-
pression ideas of witchcraft had made on the public mind even
in the gravest affairs and the counsels of a nation. Richard,
Duke of Gloucester, afterwards Richard III., shortly before his
usurpation of the crown in 1483, had recourse to this expedient
for disarming the power of his enemies, which he feared as an
obstacle to his project. Being lord protector, he came abruptly
into the assembly of the council that he had left but just before, and
suddenly asked, what punishments they deserved who should be
found to have plotted against his life, being the person, as nearest
akin to the young king, intrusted in chief with the affairs of the
nation ? And, a suitable answer being returned, he said the per-
sons he accused were the queen-dowager, and Jane Shore, the
favourite concubine of the late king, who by witchcraft and for-
bidden arts had sought to destroy him. And, while he spoke, he
laid bare his left arm up to the elbow, which appeared shrivelled
and wasted in a pitiable manner. " To this condition," said he,
"have these abandoned women reduced me.'* — ^The historian
adds, that it was well known that his arm had been thus wasted
from his birth. ^

In January, 1484, the parliament met which recognised the
title of Richard, and pronounced the marriage of Edward IV,
null, and its issue illegitimate. The same parliament passed an
act of attainder against Henry, Earl of Richmond, afterwards
Henry VII., the Countess of Richmond, his mother, and a great
number of other persons, many of them the most considerable
adherents of the house of Lancaster. Among these persons are
enumerated Thomas Nandick and William Knivet, necroman-
cers. In the first parliament of Henry VII. this attainder was
reversed, and Thomas Nandick of Cambridge, conjurer, is speci-
ally nominated as an object of free pardon.^

I Sir Thomas More, History of Edward the Fifth.
=" Buck, Life and Reign of Jlichard IIL

12—2

i8o UVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

SANGUINARY PROCEEDINGS AGAINST WITCHCRAFT.

I am now led to the most painful part of my subject, but
which does not the less constitute one of its integral members,
and which, though painful, is deeply instructive, and consti-
tutes a most essential branch in the science of human nature.
Wherever I could, I have endeavoured to render the topics which
offered themselves to my examination entertaining. When men
pretended to invert the known laws of nature, " murdering im-
possibility ; to make what cannot be, slight work;" I have been
willing to consider the whole as an ingenious fiction, and merely
serving as an example how far credulity could go in setting
aside the deductions of our reason, and the evidence of sense.
The artists in these cases did not fail to excite admiration, and
gain some sort of applause from their contemporaries, though
still with a tingling feeling that all was not exactly as it should
be, and with a confession that the professors were exercising
unhallowed arts. It was like what has been known of the art
of acting ; those who employed it were caressed and made every
where welcome, but were not allowed the distinction of Christian
burial.

But, particularly in the fifteenth century, things took a new
turn. In the dawn of the day of good sense, and when histori-
cal evidence at length began to be weighed in the scales of '
judgment, men became less careless of truth, and regarded pro-
digies and miracles with a different temper. And, as it often
happens, the crisis, the precise passage from ill to better, showed
itself more calamitous, and more full of enormities and atro-
city, than the period when the understanding was completely
hood-winked, and men digested absurdities and impossibility
with as much ease as their every day food. They would not now
forgive the tampering with the axioms of eternal truth ; they re-
garded cheat and imposture with a very different eye ; and they
had recourse to the stake and the faggot, for the purpose of
proving that they would no longer be trifled with. They treated
the offenders as the most atrocious of criminals, and thus, though
by a very indirect and circuitous method, led the way to the total

LIVES OP THE NECROMANCERS. x8l

dispersion of those clouds, which hung, with most uneasy opera-
tion, on the human understanding.

The university of Paris in the year 1398 promulgated an
edict, in which they complained that the practice of witchcraft
was become more frequent and general than at any former
period.^

A stratagem was at this time framed by the ecclesiastical per-
secutors, of confounding together the crimes of heresy and witch-
craft. The first of these might seem to be enough, in the days
of bigotry and implicit faith, to excite the horror of the vulgar ;
but the advocates of religious uniformity held that they should
be still more secure of their object, if they could combine the sin
of holding cheap the authority of the recognised heads of
Christian faith, with that of men's enlisting under the banners
of Satan, and becoming the avowed and sworn vassals of his
infernal empire. They accordingly seem to have invented the
ideas of a sabbath of witches, a numerous assembly of persons
who had cast off all sense of shame, and all regard for those
things which the rest of the human species held most sacred,
where the devil appeared among them in his most forbidding
form, and, by rites equally ridiculous and obscene, the persons
present acknowledged themselves his subjects. And, having
invented this scene, these cunning and mischievous persecutors
found means, as we shall presently see, of compelling their un-
fortunate victims to confess that they had personally assisted at
the ceremony, and performed all the degrading offices which
should consign them in the world to come to everlasting fire.

While I express myself thus, I by no means intend to en-
courage the idea that the ecclesiastical authorities of these times
were generally hypocrites. They fully partook of the narrowness
of thought of the period in which they lived. They believed
that the sin of heretical pravity was " as the sin of witchcraft ;"»
they regarded them alike with horror, and were persuaded
that there was a natural consent 'and alliance between them.
Fully impressed with this conception, they employed means
from which our genuine and undebauched nature revolts,
to extort from their deluded victims a confession of what their
' Hutchinson on Witchcraft. « 1 Samuel xv, 23,

i82 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

examiners apprehended to be true ; they asked them leading
question^ ; they suggested the answers they desired to receive;
and led the ignorant and friendless to imagine that, if these
answers were adopted, they might expect immediately to be re-
lieved from insupportable tortures. The delusion went round.
These unhappy wretches, finding themselves the objects of uni-
versal abhorrence, and the hatred of mankind, at length many
of them believed that they had entered into a league with the
devil, that they had been transported by him through the air to
an assembly of souls consigned to everlasting reprobation, that
they had bound themselves in acts of fealty to their infernal task-
master, and had received from him in return the gift of perform-
ing superhuman and supernatural feats. This is a tremendous
state of degradation of what Milton called " the faultless pro-
prieties of nature,"* which cooler thinking and more enlightened
times would lead us to regard as impossible, but to which the un-
contradicted and authentic voice of history compels us to sub-
scribe.

The Albigenses and Waldenses were a set of men, who, in the
flourishing provinces of Languedoc, in the darkest ages, and
when the understandings of human creatures by a force not less
memorable than that of Procrustes were reduced to a uniform
stature, shook off by some strange and unaccountable freak, the
chains that were universally imposed, and arrived at a boldness
of thinking similar to that which Luther and Calvin, after a lapse
of centuries, advocated with happier auspices. With these manly
and generous sentiments however they combined a considerable
portion of wild enthusiasm. They preached the necessity of a
community of goods, taught that it was necessary to wear
sandals, because sandals only had been worn by the apostles,
and devoted themselves to lives of rigorous abstinence and the
most severe self-denial.

The Cathohc Church knew no other way in those days of con-
verting heretics but by fire and sword ; and accordingly Pope
Innocent III. published a crusade against them. The inquisi*
tion was expressly appointed in its origin to bring back these
stray sheep into the flock of Christ ; and, to support this insti-

* Doctrine of Divorce, Preface.

LIVES OP THE NECROMANCERS. 183

tution in its operations, Simon Montfort marched a numerous
army for the extermination of the offenders. One hundred thou-
sand are said to have perished. They disappeared from the
country which had witnessed their commencement, and dispersed
themselves in the valleys of Piedmont, in Artois, and in various
other places. This crusade occurred in the commencement of
the thirteenth century ; and they do not again attract the notice
of history till the middle of the fifteenth.

Monstrelet, in his Chronicle, gives one of the earliest accounts
of the proceedings at this time instituted against these unfor-
tunate people, under the date of the year 1459. " ^"^ this year,"
says he, " in the town of Arras, there occurred a miserable and
inhuman scene, to which, I know not why, was given the name
of Vaudoisie, There were taken up and imprisoned a number
of considerable persons, inhabitants of this town, and others of
a very inferior class. These latter were so cruelly put to the
torture, that they confessed, that they had been transported by
supernatural means to a solitary place among woods, where the
devil appeared before them in the form of a man, though they
saw not his face. He instructed them in the way in which they
should do his bidding, and exacted from them acts of homage
and obedience. He feasted them, and after, having put out the
lights, they proceeded to acts of the grossest licentiousness."
These accounts, according to Monstrelet, were dictated to the
victims by their tormentors ; and they then added, under the
same suggestion, the names of divers lords, prelates, and gover-
nors of towns and bailliages, whom they affirmed they had seen
at these meetings, and who joined in the same unholy ceremo-
nies. The historian adds, that it cannot be concealed that
these accusations were brought by certain malicious persons,
either to gratify an ancient hatred, or to extort from the rich
sums of money, by means of which they might purchase their
escape from further prosecution. The persons apprehended
were many of them put to the torture, so severely, and for so
long a time, and were tortured again and again, that they were
obliged to confess what was laid to their charge. Some, how-
ever, showed so great constancy, that they could by no means
be induced to depart from the protestation of their innocence

i84 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

In fine, many of the poorer victims were inhumanly burned ;
while the richer with great sums of money procured their dis-
charge, but at the same time were compelled to banish them-
selves to distant places, remote from the scene of this cruel out-
rage. — Balduinus of Artois gives a similar account, and adds
that the sentence of the judges was brought by appeal under the
revision of the parliament of Paris, and was reversed by that
judicature in the year 1491.*

I have not succeeded in tracing to my satisfaction from the
original autliorities the dates of the following examples, and
therefore shall refer them to the periods assigned them in Hut-
chinson on Witchcraft. The facts themselves rest for the most
part on the most unquestionable authority.

Innocent VIII. published about the year 1484 a bull, in which
he affirms: ** It has come to our ears, that numbers of both sexes
do not avoid to have intercourse with the infernal fiends, and
that by their sorceries they afflict both man and beast ; they
blight the marriage-bed, destroy the births of women, and the
increase of cattle ; they blast the corn on the ground, the grapes
of the vineyard, the fruits of the trees, and the grass and herbs
of the field." For these reasons he arms the inquisitors with
apostolic power to " imprison, convict and punish " all such as
may be charged with these offences. — The consequences of this
edict were dreadful all over the continent, particularly in Italy,
Germany and France.

Alciatus, an eminent lawyer of this period, relates, that a cer-
tain inquisitor came about this time into the valleys of the Alps,
being commissioned ^0 inquire out and proceed against heretical
women with whom those parts are infested. He accordingly
consigned more than one hundred to the flames every day, like
a new holocaust, sacrificing such persons to Vulcan, as, in the
judgment of the historian, were subjects demanding rather helle-
bore than fire ; till at length the peasantry of the vicinity rose in
arms, and drove the merciless judge out of the country. The
culprits were accused of having dishonoured the crucifix, and
denying Christ for their God. They were asserted to have
solemnised after a detestable way the devil's sabbath, in which

* Delrio, Disquisitiones Magicee, p. 746.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCEkS, 185

the fiend appeared personally among them, and instructed them
in the ceremonies of his worship. Meanwhile a question was
raised whether they personally assisted on the occasion, or only
saw the solemnities in a vision, credible witnesses having sworn
that they were at home in their beds, at the very time that they
were accused of having taken part in these blasphemies.^

In 15 1 5, more than five hundred persons are said to have
suffered capitally for the crime of witchcraft in the city of Geneva
in the course of three months.*

In 1524, one thousand persons were burned on this accu-
sation in the territory of Como, and one hundred per annum for
several years after.3

Danasus commences his Dialogue of Witches with this obser-
vation. " Within three months of the present time (1575) an al-
most infinite number of witches have been taken, on whom the
Parliament of Paris has passed judgment: and the same tribunal
fails not to sit daily, as malefactors accused of this crime are
continually brought before them out of all the provinces."

In the year 1595 Nicholas Remi, otherwise Remigius, printed
a very curious work, entitled Demonolatreia, in which he elabo-
rately expounds the principles of the compact into which the
devil enters with his mortal allies, and the modes of conduct
specially observed by both parties. He boasts that his expo-
sition is founded on an exact observation of the judicial proceed-
ings which had taken place under his eye in the duchy of
Lorraine, where for the preceding fifteen years nine hundred
persons, more or less, had suffered the extreme penalty
of the law for the crime of sorcery. Most of the persons tried
seem to have been sufficiently communicative as to the different
kinds of menace and compulsion by which the devil had brought
them into his terms, and the various appearances he had ex-
hibited, and feats he had performed: but others, says the author,
had, "by preserving an obstinate silence, shown themselves in-
vincible to every species of torture that could be inflicted on
them."

' Alciatus, Parergw*' Juris, 1. viii. cap. 22.

* Danaeus, apud Delrio, Proloquium.

3 Bartholomeeus de Spina, De Strigibus, c. 13.

186 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

But the most memorable record that remains to us on the
subject of witchcraft, is contained in an ample quarto volume,
entitled A Representation {Tableau) of the 111 Faith of Evil
Spirits and Demons, by Pierre de Lancre, Royal Counsellor in
the Parliament of Bordeaux. This man was appointed, with one
coadjutor, to enquire into certain acts of sorcery reported to
have been committed in the district of Labourt, near the foot of
the Pyrenees; and his commission bears date in May, 1609, and
by consequence twelve months before the death of Henry the
Fourth.

The book is dedicated to M. de Silleri, chancellor of France ;
and in the dedication the author observes, that formerly those
who practised sorcery were well known for persons of obscure
station and narrow intellect ; but that now the sorcerers who
confess their misdemeanours, depose, that there are seen in the
customary meetings held by such persons a great number of
individuals of quality, whom Satan keeps veiled from ordinary
gaze, and who are allowed to approach near to him, while those
of a poorer and more vulgar class are thrust back to the furthest
part of the assembly. The whole narrative assumes the form of
a regular warfare between Satan on the one side, and the royal
commissioners on the other.

At first the devil endeavoured to supply the accused with
strength to support the tortures by which it was sought to extort
confession from them, insomuch that, in an intermission of the
torture, the wretches declared that, presently falling asleep, they
seemed to be in paradise, and to enjoy the most beautiful visions.
The commissioners however, observing this, took care to grant
them scarcely any remission, till they had drawn from them, if
possible, an ample confession. The devil next proceeded to stop
the mouths of the accused that they might not confess. He
leaped on their throats, and evidently caused an obstruction of
the organs of speech, so that in vain they endeavoured to relieve
themselves by disclosing all that was demanded of them.

The historian proceeds to say that, at these sacrilegious
assemblings, they now began to murmur against the devil, as
wanting power to relieve them in their extremity. The children,
the daughters, and other relatives of the victims reproached him,

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 1S7

not scrupling to say, " Out upon you ! you promised that our
mothers who were prisoners should not die ; and look how you
have kept your word with us I They have been burned, and are
a heap of ashes." In answer to this charge the devil stoutly
affirmed that their parents, who seemed to have suflfered, were
not dead, but were safe in a foreign country, assuring the mal-
contents that, if they called on them, they would receive an
answer. The children called accordingly, and by an infernal illu-
sion an answer came, exactly in the several voices of the deceased,
declaring that they were in a state of happiness and security.

Further to satisfy the complainers, the devil produced illusory
fires, and encouraged the dissatisfied to walk through them,
assuring them that the fires lighted by a judicial decree were as
harmless and inoffensive as these. The demon further threat-
ened that he would cause the prosecutors to be burned in their
own fire, and even proceeded to make them in semblance hover
and alight on the branches of the neighbouring trees. He fur-
ther caused a swarm of toads to appear like a garland to crown
the heads of the sufferers, at which when in one instance the
bystanders threw stones to drive them away, one monstrous
black toad remained to the last uninjured, and finally mounted
aloft, and vanished from sight. De Lancre goes on to describe
the ceremonies of the sabbath of the devil ; and a plate is in-
serted, presenting the assembly in the midst of their solemnities.
He describes in several chapters the sort of contract entered into
between the devil and the sorcerers, the marks by which they
may be known, the feast with which the demon regaled them,
their distorted and monstrous dance, the copulation between the
fiend and the witch, and its issue. — It is easy to imagine with
what sort of fairness the trials were conducted, when such is the
description the judge affords us of what passed at these assem-
blies. Six hundred were burned under this prosecution.

The last chapter is devoted to an accurate account of what
took place at an auto-da-fe in the month of November, 16 10, at
Logrogno, on the Ebro, in Spain, the victims being for the greater
part the unhappy wretches who had escaped through the Pyre-
nees from the merciless prosecution that had been exercised
against them by the historian of the whole.

i88 LIVES OF run NECkOMANCnRS,

SA VONAROLA.

Jerome Savonarola was one of the most remarkable men of
his time, and his fortunes are well adapted to illustrate Ihe pecu-
liarities of that period. He was born in the year 1452 at Ferrara,
in Italy. He became a Dominican Friar at Bologna without the
knowledge of his parents in the twenty-second year of his age.
He was first employed by his superiors in elucidating the princi-
ples of physics and metaphysics. But, after having occupied
some years in this way, he professed to take a lasting leave of
these subtleties, and to devote himself exclusively to the study
of the Scriptures. In no long time he became an eminent
preacher, by the elegance and purity of his style acquiring the
applause of hearers of taste, and by the unequalled fervour of his
eloquence securing the hearts of the many. It was soon obvious,
that, by his power gained in this mode, he could do anything he
pleased with the people of Florence among whom he resided.
Possessed of such an asce;idancy, he was not contented to be
the spiritual guide of the souls of men, but further devoted him-
self to the temporal prosperity and grandeur of his country.
The house of Medici was at this time masters of the state, and
the celebrated Lorenzo de Medici possessed the administration
of affairs. But the pohtical maxims of Lorenzo were in discord
with those of our preacher. Lorenzo sought to concentrate all
authority in the opulent few; but Savonarola, proceeding on the
model of the best times of ancient Rome, endeavoured to vest
the sovereign power in the hands of the people.

He had settled at Florence in the thirty-fourth year of his age,
being invited to become prior of the convent of St. Mark in that
city : and such was his popularity, that, four years after, Lorenzo
on his death-bed sent for Savonarola to administer to him spiritual
consolation. Meanwhile, so stern did this republican show him-
self, that he insisted on Lorenzo's renunciation of his absolute
power, before he would administer to him the sacrament and ab-
solution ; and Lorenzo complied with these terms.

The prince being dead, Savonarola stepped immediately into
the highest authority. He reconstituted the state upon pure re-
publican principles, and enjoined four things especially in all his

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 189

public preachings, the fear of God, the love of the republic, ob-
livion of all past injuries, and equal rights to all for the future.

But Savonarola was not contented with the delivery of Florence,
where he is said to have produced a total revolution of manners,
from libertinism to the most exemplary purity and integrity ;
he likewise aspired to produce an equal effect on the entire of
Italy. Alexander VI., the most profligate of popes, then filled
the chair at Rome ; and Savonarola thundered against him in
the cathedral at Florence the most fearful denunciations. The
pope did not hesitate a moment to proceed to extremities against
the friar. He cited him to Rome, under pain, if disobeyed, of
excommunication to the priest, and an interdict to the republic
that harboured him. The Florentines several times succeeded
in causing the citation to be revoked, and, making terms with
the sovereign pontiff, Jerome again and again suspending his
preachings, which were, however, continued by other friars, his
colleagues and confederates. Savonarola, meanwhile, could not
long be silent ; he resumed his philippics as fiercely as ever.

At this time faction raged strongly at Florence. Jerome had
many partisans ; all the Dominicans, and the greater part of the
populace. But he had various enemies leagued against him ;
the adherents of the house of Medici, those of the pope, the •
libertines, and all orders of monks and friars except the Domini-
cans. The violence proceeded so far, that the preacher was not
unfrequently insulted in his pulpit, and the cathedral echoed with
the dissensions of the parties. At length a conspiracy was or-
ganised against Savonarola ; and, his adherents having got the
better, the friar did not dare to trust the punishment of his
enemies to the general assembly, where the question would
have led to a scene of warfare, but referred it to a more limited
tribunal, and finally proceeded to the infliction of death on its
sole authority.

This extremity rendered his enemies more furious against
him. The pope directed absolution, the communion, and the
rites of sepulture, to be refused to his followers. He was now
expelled from the cathedral at Florence, and removed his preach-
ings to the chapel of his convent, which was enlarged in its ac-
commodations to adapt itself to his numerous auditors. In this

190 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

interim a most extraordinary scene took place. One Francis de
Pouille offered himself to the trial of fire, in favour of the
validity of the excommunication of the pope against the pre-
tended inspiration and miracles of the prophet. He said he did
not doubt to perish in the experiment, but that he should have
the satisfaction of seeing Savonarola perish along with him.
Dominic de Pescia, however, and another Dominican presented
themselves to the flames instead of Jerome, alleging that he was
reserved for higher things. De Pouille at first declined the sub-
stitution, but was afterwards prevailed on to submit. A vast fire
was lighted in the market-place for the trial ; and a low and
narrow gallery of iron passed over, the middle, on which the
challenger and the challenged were to attempt to effect their
passage. But a furious deluge of rain was said to have occurred
at the instant every thing was ready ; the fire was extinguished ;
and the trial for the present was thus rendered impossible.

Savonarola in the earnestness of his preachings pretended to
turn prophet, and confidently to predict future events. He spoke
of Charles VIII. of France as the Cyrus who should deliver
Italy, and subdue the nations before him ; and even named the
spring of the year 1498 as the period that should see all these
things performed.

But it was not in prophecy alone that Savonarola laid claim
to supernatural aid. He described various contests that he
had maintained against a multitude of devils at once in his
convent. They tonnented in different ways the friars of St.
Mark, but ever shrank with awe from his personal interposition.
They attempted to call upon him by name ; but the spirit of
God overruled them, so that they could never pronounce his
name aright, but still misplaced syllables and letters in a ludi-
crous fashion. They uttered terrific threatenings against him,
but immediately after shrank away with fear, awed by the holy
words and warnings which he denounced against them. Savona-
rola besides undertook to expel them by night, by sprinkling holy
water, and the singing of hymns in a solemn chorus. While,
however, he was engaged in these sacred offices, and pacing the
cloister of his convent, the devils would arrest his steps, and
suddenly render the air before him so thick, that it was impos-

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 191

sible for him to advance further. On another occasion one of
his colleagues assured Francis Picus of Mirandola, the writer of
his life, that he had himself seen the Holy Ghost in the form of a
dove, more than once, sitting on Savonarola's shoulder, fluttering
his feathers, which were sprinkled with silver and gold, and,
putting his beak to his ear, whispering to him his divine sug-
gestions. The prior, besides, relates in a book of his own com-
position at great length a dialogue that he held with the devil, ap-
pearing like, and having been mistaken by the writer for, a hermit.

The life of Savonarola, however, came to a speedy and tragical
close. The multitude, who are always fickle in their impulses,
conceiving an unfavourable impression in consequence of his
personally declining the trial by fire, turned against him. The
same evening they besieged the convent where he resided, and
in which he had taken refuge. The signory, seeing the urgency
of the case, sent to the brotherhood, commanding them to sur*
render the prior, and the two Dominicans who had presented
themselves in his stead to the trial by fire. The pope sent two
judges to try them on the spot. They were presently put to the
torture, Savonarola, who we are told was of a delicate habit of
body, speedily confessed and expressed contrition for what he had
done. But no sooner was he delivered from the strappado, than
he retracted all that he had before confessed. The experiment
was repeated several times, and always with the same success.

At length he and the other two were adjudged to perish in the
flames. This sentence was no sooner pronounced than Savona-
rola resumed all the constancy of a martyr. He advanced to
the place of execution with a steady pace and a serene counten*
ance, and in the midst of the flames resignedly commended his
soul into the hands of his Maker. His adherents regarded him
as a witness to the truth, and piously collected his relics ; but his
judges, to counteract this defiance of authority, commanded his
remains and his ashes to be cast into the river. ^

TRITHEMWS.
A name that has in some way become famous in the annals of
magic, is that of John Trithemius, Abbot of Spanheim, or Spon-

^ Biographic Universelle.

192 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

heim, in the circle of the Upper Rhine. He was born in the
year 1463. He early distinguished himself by his devotion to
literature ; insomuch, that, according to the common chrono-
logy, he was chosen in the year 1482, being about twenty years
of age, abbot of the Benedictine monastery of St Martin at
Spanheim. He has written a great number of works, and has
left some memorials of his life. Learning was at a low ebb
when he was chosen to this dignity. The library of the convent
consisted of little more than forty volumes. But, shortly after,
under his superintendence, it amounted to many hundreds. He
insisted upon his monks diligently employing themselves in the
multiplication of manuscripts. The monks, who had hitherto
spent their days in luxurious idleness, were greatly dissatisfied
with this revolution, and led their abbot a very uneasy life. He
was in consequence removed to preside over the Abbey of St.
Jacques in Wurtzburg in 1506, where he died in tranquillity and
peace in 15 16.

Trithemius has been accused of necomancy and a commerce
with demons. The principal ground of this accusation lies in a
story that has been told of his intercourse with the emperor
Maximilian. Maximilian's first wife was Mary of Burgundy,
whom he lost in the prime of her life. The emperor was incon-
solable upon the occasion ; and Trithemius, who was called in
as singularly qualified to comfort him, having tried all other ex-
pedients in vain, at length told Maximilian that he would under-
take to place his late consort before him precisely in the state in
which she had lived. After suitable preparations, Mary of Bur-
gundy accordingly appeared. The emperor was struck with
astonishment. He found the figure before him in all respects
like the consort he had lost. At length he exclaimed, "There is
one mark by which I shall infallibly know whether this is the
same person. Mary, my wife, had a wart in the nape of her
neck, to the existence of which no one was privy but myself.'
He examined, and found the wart there, in all respects as it had
been during her life. The story goes on to say, that Maximilian
was so disgusted and shocked with what he saw, that he banished
Trithemius his presence for ever.

This tale has been discredited, partly on the score of the

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCRNS, 193

period of the death of Mary of Burgundy, which happened in
1 48 1, when Trithemius was qnly nineteen years of age. He
himself expressly disclaims all imputation of sorcery. One
ground of the charge has been placed upon the existence of a
work of his, entitled Steganographia, or the art, by means of a
secret writing, of communicating our thoughts to a person ab-
sent. He says, however, that in this work he had merely used
the language of magic, without in any degreehaving had recourse
to their modes of proceeding. Trithemius appears to have been
the first writer who has made mention of the extraordinary feats of
John Faust of Wittenburg, and that in a way that shows he con-
sidered these enchantments as the work of a supernatural power, «

LUTHER,

It is particularly proper to introduce some mention of Luther
in this place ; not that he is in any way implicated in the ques-
tion of necromancy, but that there are passages in his writings in
which he talks of the devil in what we should now think a very
extraordinary way. And it is curious, and not a little instructive,
to see how a person of so masculine an intellect, and who in
many respects so far outran the illumination of his age, was accus-
tomed to judge respecting the intercourse of mortals with the in-
habitants of the infernal world. Luther was born in the year 1483.

It appears from his "Treatise on the Abuses attendant on
Private Masses," that he had a conference with the devil on the
subject. He says, that this supernatural personage caused him
by his visits ** many bitter nights and much restless and wear-
isome repose." Once in particular he came to Luther, " in the
dead of the night, when he was just awaked out of sleep. The
devil," he goes on to say, "knows well how to construct his
arguments, and to urge them with the skill of a master. He
delivers himself with a grave, and yet a shrill voice. Nor does
he use circumlocutions, and beat about the bush, but excels in
forcible statements and quick rejoinders. I no longer wonder,"
he adds, " that the persons whom he assails in this way, are oc-
casionally found dead in their beds. He is able to compress
and throttle, and more than once he has so assaulted me and
' Biographic Universelle.

13

194 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

driven my soul into a corner, that I felt as if the next moment
it must leave my body. I am of opinion that Gesner and CEc-
lampadius and others in that manner came by their deaths.
The devil's manner of opening a debate is pleasant enough ; but
he urges things so peremptorily, that the respondent in a short
time knows not how to acquit himself."* He elsewhere says,
" The reasons why the sacramentarians understood so little of
the Scriptures, is that they do not encounter the true opponent,
that is, the devil, who presently drives one up in a corner, and
thus makes one perceive the just interpretation. For my part I
am thoroughly acquainted with him, and have eaten a bushel of
salt with him. He sleeps with me more frequently, and lies
nearer to me in bed, than my own wife does."^

CORNELIUS AGRIPPA.

Henry Cornelius Agrippa was born in the year i486. He was
one of the most celebrated men of his time. His talents were
remarkably great ; and he had a surprising facility in the acqui-
sition of languages. He is spoken of with the highest commen-
dations by Trithemius, Erasmus, Melancthon, and others, the
greatest men of his times. But he was a man of the most violent
passions, and of great instability of temper. He was of conse-
quence exposed to memorable vicissitudes. He had great repu-
tation as an astrologer, and was assiduous in the cultivation of
chemistry. He had the reputation of possessing the philoso-
pher's stone, and was incessantly experiencing the privations of
poverty. He was subject to great persecutions, and was re-
peatedly imprisoned. He received invitations at the same time
from Henry VIII., from the chancellor of the emperor, from a
distinguished Italian marquis, and from Margaret of Austria,
governess of the Low Countries. He made his election in
favour of the last, and could find no way so obvious of showing
his gratitude for her patronage, as composing an elaborate treatise
on the Superiority of the Female Sex, which he dedicated to her.
Shortly after, he produced a work not less remarkable, to demon-
strate the Vanity and Emptiness of Scientifical Acquirements.

I Hospinian, Historia Sacramentaria, Part II., fol. 131.
= Bayle.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 195

Margaret of Austria being dead, he was subsequently appointed
physician to Louisa of Savoy, mother to Francis I. This lady,
however, having assigned him a task disagreeable to his inclina-
tion, a calculation according to the rules of astrology, he made
no scruple of turning against her, and affirniing that he should
henceforth hold her for a cruel and perfidious Jezebel. After a
life of storms and perpetual vicissitude, he died in 1534, aged 48
years.

He enters, however, into the work I am writing, principally on
account of the extraordinary stories that have been told of him
on the subject of magic. He says of himself, in his Treatise on
the Vanity of Sciences, " Being then a very young man, I wrote
in three books of a considerable size Disquisitions concerning
Magic."

The first of the stories I am about to relate is chiefly interesting
inasmuch as it is connected with the history of one of the most
illustrious ornaments of our early English poetry, Henry Howard
Earl of Surrey, who suffered death at the close of the reign of King
Henry VIII. The Earl of Surrey, we are told, became acquainted
with Cornelius Agrippa at the court of John George, Elector of
Saxony. On this occasion were present, beside the English
nobleman, Erasmus, and many other persons eminent in the
republic of letters. These persons showed themselves enamoured
of the reports that had been spread of Agrippa, and desired him
before the elector to exhibit something memorable. One in-
treated him to call up Plautus, and show him as he appeared
in garb and countenance, when he ground corn in the mill.
Another before all things desired to see Ovid. But Erasmus
earnestly requested to behold Tully in the act of delivering his
oration for Roscius. This proposal carried the most votes.
And, after marshalling the concourse of spectators, Tully ap-
peared, at the command of Agrippa, and from the rostrum pro-
nounced the oration, precisely in the words in which it has been
handed down to us, "with such astonishing animation, so fervent
an exaltation of spirit, and such soul-stirring gestures, that all
the persons present were ready, like the Romans of old, to pro-
nounce his client innocent of every charge that had been brought
against him." The story adds that, when Sir Thomas More

13—2

196 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

was at the same place, Agrippa showed him the whole destruc-
tion of Troy in a dream. To Thomas, Lord Cromwell, he exhibited
in a perspective glass King Henry VIII. and all his lords hunt-
ing in his forest at Windsor. To Charles V. he showed David,
Solomon, Gideon, and the rest, with the Nine Worthies, in their
habits and similitude as they had lived.

Lord Surrey, in the meantime having gotten into familiarity
with Agrippa, requested him by the way side as they travelled,
to set before him his mistress, the fair Geraldine, showing at the
same time what she did, and with whom she talked. Agrippa
accordingly exhibited his magic glass, in which the noble poet
saw this beautiful dame, sick, weeping upon her bed, and incon-
solable for the absence of her admirer. — It is now known that
the sole authority for this tale is Thomas Nash, the dramatist, in
his Adventures of Jack Wilton, printed in the year 1593.

Paulus Jovius relates that Agrippa always kept a devil at-
tendant upon him, who accompanied him in all his travels in the
shape of a black dog. When he lay on his death-bed, he was
earnestly exhorted to repent of his sins. Being in consequence
struck with a deep contrition, he took hold of the dog, and re-
moved from him a collar studded with nails, which formed a
necromantic inscription, at the same time saying to him, " Begone,
wretched animal, which hast been the cause of my entire destruc-
tion !" — It is added, that the dog immediately ran away, and
plunged itself in the river Soane, after which it was seen no
more.^ It is further related of Agrippa, as of many other magi-
cians, that he was in the habit, when he regaled himself at an inn,
of paying his bill in counterfeit money, which at the time of pay-
ment appeared of sterling value, but in a few days after became
pieces of horn and worthless shells.*

But the most extraordinary story of Agrippa is told by Delrio,
and is as follows. Agrippa had occasion one time to be absent
for a few days from his residence at Louvain. During his ab-
sence he intrusted his wife with the key of his Museum, but with
an earnest injunction that no one on any account should be al-
lowed to enter. Agrippa happened at that time to have a boarder

' Paulus Jovius, Elogia Doctorum Virorum, c. loi.

» Delrio, Disquisitiones Magicae, lib. ii., Qusestio xi. § 18.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 197

in his house, a young fellow of insatiable curiosity, who would
never give over importuning his hostess, till at length he ob-
tained from her the forbidden key. The first thing in the Museum
that attracted his attention was a book of spells and incantations.
He spread this book upon a desk, and, thinking no harm, began
to read aloud. He had not long continued this occupation,
when a knock was heard at the door of the chamber. The youth
took no notice, but continued reading. Presently followed a
second knock, which somewhat alarmed the reader. The space
of a minute having elapsed, and no answer made, the door was
opened, and a demon entered. " For what purpose am I called ?''
said the stranger sternly. "What is it you demand to have
done?" The youth was seized with the greatest alarm, and
struck speechless. The demon advanced towards him, seized
him by the throat, and strangled him, indignant that his presence
should thus be invoked from pure thoughtlessness and presump-
tion.

At the expected time Agrippa came home, and to his great
surprise found a number of devils capering and playing striinge
antics about, and on the roof of his house. By his art he caused
them to desist from their sport, and with authority demjtnded
what was the cause of this novel appearance. The chief of them
answered. He told how they had been invoked, and insulted,
and what revenge they had taken. Agrippa became exceedingly
alarmed for the consequences to himself of this unfortunate ad-
venture. He ordered the demon without loss of time to reani-
mate the body of his victim, then to go forth, and to walk the
boarder three or four times up and down the market-place in the
sight of the people. The infernal spirit did as he was ordered,
showed the student publicly alive, and having done this, suffered
the body to fall down, the marks of conscious existence being
plainly no more. For a time it was thought that the student had
been killed by a sudden attack of disease. But, presently after,
the marks of strangulation were plainly discerned, and the truth
came out. Agrippa was then obliged suddenly to withdraw him-
self, and to take up his residence in a distant province.*

> Delrio, lib. ii., Quaestio xzix., § 7.

198 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

Wierus in his well-known book, " De Praestigiis Demonum,"
informs us that he had lived for years in daily attendance on
Cornelius Agrippa, and that the black dog respecting which such
strange surmises had been circulated, was a perfectly innocent
animal that he had often led in a string. He adds, that the sole
foundation for the story lay in the fact that Agrippa had been
much attached to the dog, which he was accustomed to permit
to eat off the table with its master, and even to lie of nights in
his bed. He further remarks, that Agrippa was accustomed
often not to go out of his room for a week together, and that
people accordingly wondered that he could have such accurate
information of what was going on in all parts of the world, and
•would have it that his intelligence was communicated to him by
his dog. He subjoins, however, that Agrippa had in fact corre-
spondents in every quarter of the globe, and received letters from
them daily, and that this was the real source of his extraordinary
intelligence.^

Naud4, in his " Apology for Great Men Accused of Magic,"
mentions, that Agrippa composed a book of the "Rules and
Precepts of the Art of Magic," and that, if such a work could
entitle a man to the character of a magician, Agrippa indeed well
deserved it But he gives it as his opinion that this was the only
ground for fastening the imputation on this illustrious character.

Without believing, however, any of the tales of the magic prac-
tices of Cornelius Agrippa, and even perhaps without supposing
that he seriously pretended to such arts, we are here presented
with a striking picture of the temper and creduhty of the times
in which he lived. We plainly see from the contemporary evi-
dence of Wierus, that such things were believed of him by his
neighbours ; and at that period it was sufficiently common for
any man of deep study, of recluse habits, and a certain sententious
and magisterial air to undergo these imputations. It is more
than probable that Agrippa was willing by a general silence and
mystery to give encouragement to the wonder of the vulgar mind.
He was flattered by the terror and awe which his appearance
inspired. He did not wish to come down to the ordinary level.

I Wieriis, lib. ii., c. v. §§ ii, I2.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 199

And if to this we add his pursuits of alchemy and astrology, with
the formidable and various apparatus supposed to be required in
these pursuits, we shall no longer wonder at the results which
followed. He loved to wander on the brink of danger, and was
contented to take his chance of being molested, rather than not
possess that ascendancy over the ordinary race of mankind which
was evidently gratifying to his vanity.

FAUSTUS,

Next in respect of time to Cornelius Agrippa comes the cele-
brated Dr. Faustus. Little in point of fact is known respecting
this eminent personage in the annals of necromancy. His pre-
tended history does not seem to have been written till about the
year 1587, perhaps half a century after his death. This work is
apparently in its principal features altogether fictitious. We
have no reason however to deny the early statements as to his
life. He is asserted by Camerarius and Wierus to have been
born at Cundling, near Cracow, in the kingdom of Poland, and is
understood to have passed the principal part of his life at the
university of Wittenberg. He was probably well known to Cor-
nelius Agrippa and Paracelsus. Melancthon mentions him in
his letters ; and Conrad Gessner refers to him as a contemporary.
The author of his life cites the opinions entertained respecting
him by Luther. Philip Camerarius speaks of him in his " Horae
Subsecivae ** as a celebrated name among magicians, apparently
without reference to the life that has come down to us ;« and
Wierus does the same thing.* He was probably nothing more
than an accomplished juggler, who appears to have practised his
art with great success in several towns of Germany. He was also
no doubt a pretender to necromancy.

On this basis the well-known History of his Life has been
built. The author has with great art expanded very slender
materials, and rendered his work in a striking degree a code and
receptacle of all the most approved ideas respecting necromancy
and a profane and sacrilegious dealing with the devil. He has
woven into it with much skill the pretended arts of the sorcerers,

1 Cent. !,, cap. 70. a De Pfaestigiis Deraonum, lib. ii., cap. iv., 8.

fiod LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

and has transcribed or closely imitated the stories that have been
handed down to us of many of the extraordinary feats they were
said to have performed. It is therefore suitable to our purpose
to dwell at some length upon the successive features of this
history.

The life has been said to have been originally written in Spain
by Franciscus Schottus of Toledo, in the Latin language.* But
this biographical work is assigned to the date of 1594, previously
to which the Life is known to have existed in German. It is im-
probable that a Spanish writer should have chosen a German for
the hero of his romance, whereas nothing can be more natural
than for a German to have conceived the idea of giving fame
and notoriety to his countryman. The mistake seems to be the
same, though for an opposite reason, as that which appears to
have been made in representing the GU Bias of Le Sage as a
translation.

The biographical account professes to have been begun by
Faustus himself, though written in the third person, and to have
been continued by Wagner, his confidential servant, to whom
the doctor is affirmed to have bequeathed his memoirs, letters
and manuscripts, together with his house and its furniture.

Faustus then, according to his history, was the son of a peasant,
residing on the banks of the Roda in the duchy of Weimar, and
was early adopted by an uncle, dwelling in the city of Witten-
berg, who had no children. Here he was sent to college, and
was soon distinguished by the greatness of his talents, and the
rapid progress he made in every species of learning that was put
before him. He was destined by his relative to the profession of
theology. But singularly enough, considering that he is repre-
sented as furnishing materials for his own Memoirs, he is said
ungraciously to have set at nought his uncle's pious intentions
by deriding God's word, and thus to have resembled Cain,
Reuben and Absalom, who, having sprung from godly parents,
afflicted their fathers' hearts by their apostasy. He went through
his examinations with applause, and carried off all the first prizes
among sixteen competitors. He therefore obtained the degree

» Durrius, apud Schelhom, Amcenitates Literarise, torn. v. p. 50, ci
»9qq.

Ul^ES OP THIS NECROMANCERS, ^t

of doctor in divinity ; but his success only made him the more
proud and headstrong. He disdained his theological eminence,
and sighed for distinction as a man of the world. He took his
degree as a doctor of medicine, and aspired to celebrity as a
practitioner of -physic. About the same time he fell in with cer-
tain contemporaries, of tastes similar to his own, and associated
with them in the study of Chaldean, Greek and Arabic science,
of strange incantations and supernatural influences, in short, of
all the arts of a sorcerer.

Having made such progress as he could by dint of study and
intense application, he at length resolved to prosecute his pur-
poses still further by actually raising the devil. He happened one
evening to walk in a thick, dark wood, within a short distance
from Wittenberg, when it occurred to him that that was a fit
place for executing his design. He stopped at a solitary spot
where four roads met, and made use of his wand to mark out a
large circle, and then two small ones within the larger. In one
of these he fixed himself, appropriating the other for the use of
his expected visitor. He went over the precise range of charms
and incantations, omitting nothing. It was now dark night, be-
tween the ninth and tenth hour. The devil manifested himself
by the usual signs of his appearance. " Wherefore am I called ?^
said he, " and what is it that you demand V* " I require,*' re-
joined Faustus, " that you should sedulously attend upon me,
answer my inquiries, and fulfil my behests."

Immediately upon Faustus pronouncing these words, there
followed a tumult over head, as if heaven and earth were coming
together. The trees in their topmost branches bended to their
very roots. It seemed as if the whole forest were peopled with
devils, making a crash like a thousand waggons, hurrying to the
right and the left, before and behind, in every possible direction,
with thunder and lightning, and the continual discharge of great
cannon. Hell appeared to have emptied itself, to have furnished
the din. There succeeded the most charming music from all
sorts of instruments, and sounds of hilarity and dancing. Next
came a report as of a tournament, and the clashing of innumer-
able lances.. This lasted so long, that Faustus was many times
about to rush out of the circle in which he had inclosed himself,

fl6i LIVES OF THE NECROMANCMS,

and to abandon his preparations. His courage and resolution
however got the better ; and he remained immovable. He pur-
sued his incantations without intermission. Then came to the
very edge of the circle a griffin first, and next a dragon, which
in the midst of his enchantments grinned at him horribly with
his teeth, but finally fell down at his feet, and extended his
length to many a rood. Faustus persisted. Then succeeded a
sort of fireworks, a pillar of fire, and a man on fire at the top,
who leaped down ; and there immediately appeared a number
of globes here and there red-hot, while the man on fire went and
came to every part of the circle for a quarter of an hour. At
length the devil came forward in the shape of a grey monk, and
asked Faustus what he wanted. Faustus adjourned their further
conference, and appointed the devil to come to him at his
lodgings.

He in the meantime busied himself in the necessary prepara-
tions. He entered his study at the appointed time, and found
the devil waiting for him. Faustus told him that he had pre-
pared certain articles, to which it was necessary that the demon
should fully accord, — that he should attend him at all times,
when required, for all the days of his life, that he should bring
him every thing he wanted, that he should come to him in any
shape that Faustus required, or be invisible, and Faustus should
be invisible too, whenever he desired it, that he should deny him
nothing, and answer him with perfect veracity to every thing he
demanded. To some of these requisitions the spirit could not
consent without authority from his master, the chief of devils.
At length all these concessions were adjusted. The devil on his
part also prescribed his conditions. That Faustus should abjure
the Christian religion and all reverence for the supreme God ;
that he should enjoy the entire command of his attendant demon
for a certain term of years, and that at the^end of that period the
devil should dispose of him body and soul at his pleasure [the
term was fixed for twenty-four years] ; that he should at all times
stedfastly refuse to listen to any one who should desire to convert
him, or convince him of the error of his ways, and lead him to
repentance ; that Faustus should draw up a writing containing
these particulars, and sign it with his blood, that he should de-

LIVES OF THE NECKOMANCEkS, 263

liver this writing to the devil, and keep a duplicate of it for him-
self, that so there might be no misunderstanding. It was further
appointed by Faustus that the devil should usually attend him in
the habit of a cordelier, with a pleasing countenance and an in-
sinuating demeanour. Faustus also asked the devil his name,
who answered that he was usually called Mephistophiles (per-
haps more accurately Nephistophiles, a lover of clouds).

Previously to this deplorable transaction, in which Faustus
sold himself, soul and body, to the devil, he had consumed his
inheritance, and was reduced to great poverty. But he was now
no longer subjected to any straits. The establishments of the
Prince of Chutz, the Duke of Bavaria, and the Archbishop of
Saltzburgh were daily put under contribution for his more con-
venient supply. By the diligence of Mephistophiles provisions
of all kinds continually flew in at his windows ; and the choicest
wines were perpetually found at his board, to the annoyance and
discredit of the cellarers and butlers of these eminent person-
ages, who were extremely blamed for defalcations in which they
had no share. He also brought him a monthly supply of money,
sufficient for the support of his establishment. Besides, he sup-
plied him with a succession of mistresses, such as his heart
desired, which were in truth nothing but devils disguised under
the semblance of beautiful women. He further gave to Faustus
a book, in which were amply detailed the processes of sorcery
and witchcraft, by means of which the doctor could obtain what-
ever he desired.

One of the earliest indulgences which Faustus proposed to
himself from the command he possessed over his servant-demon,
was the gratification of his curiosity in surveying the various
nations of the world. Accordingly Mephistophiles converted
himself into a horse, with two hunches on his back like a drome-
dary, between which he conveyed Faustus through the air >vhere-
ever he desired. They consumed fifteen months in their travels.
Among the countries they visited the history mentions Pannonia,
Austria, Germany, Bohemia, Silesia, Saxony, Misnia, Thuringia,
Franconia, Suabia, Bavaria, Lithuania, Livonia, Prussia, Mus-
covy, Friseland, Holland, Westphalia, Zealand, Brabant,
Flanders, France, Spain, Italy, Poland, and Hungary ; and

204 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

afterwards Turkey, Egypt, England, Sweden, Denmark, India,
Africa, and Persia. In most of these countries Mephistophiles
points out to his fellow-traveller their principal curiosities and
antiquities. In Rome they sojourned three days and three nights,
and, being themselves invisible, visited the residence of the pope
and the other principal palaces.

At Constantinople Faustus visited the emperor of the Turks,
assuming to himself the figure of the prophet Mahomet. His
approach was preceded by a splendid illumination, not less than
that of the sun in all his glory. He said to the emperor, " Happy
art thou, oh sultaif, who art found worthy to be visited by the
great prophet." And the emperor in return fell prostrate before
him, thanking Mahomet for his condescension in this visit The
doctor also entered the seraglio, where he remained six days
under the same figure, the building and its gardens being all the
time environed with a thick darkness, so that no one, not the
emperor himself, dared to enter. At the end of this time the
doctor, still under the figure of Mahomet, was publicly seen,
ascending, as it seemed, to heaven. The sultan afterwards in-
quired of the women of his seraglio what had occurred to them
during the period of the darkness ; and they answered that the
God Mahomet had been with them, that he had enjoyed them
corporeally, and had told them that from his seed should arise
a great people, capable of irresistible exploits.

Faustus had conceived a plan of making his way into the
terrestrial paradise, without awakening suspicion in his demon-
conductor. For this purpose he ordered him to ascend the
highest mountains of Asia. At length they came so near, that
they saw the angel with the flaming sword forbidding approach
to the garden. Faustus, perceiving this, asked Mephistophiles
what it meant. His conductor told him, but added that it was
in vain for them, or any one but the angels of the Lord, to think
of entering within.

Having gratified his curiosity in other ways, Faustus was

seized with a vehement desire to visit the infernal regions. He

proposed the question to Mephistophiles, who told him that this

was a matter out of his department, and that on that journey he

^uld have no other conductor than Beelzebub. Accordingly,

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 205

everything being previously arranged, one day at midnight
Beelzebub appeared, being already equipped with a saddle made
of dead men's bones. Faustus speedily mounted. They in a short
time came to an abyss, and encountered a multitude of enormous
serpents ; but a bear with wings came to their aid, and drove the
serpents away. A flying bull next came with a hideous roar, so
fierce that Beelzebub appeared to give way, and Faustus tumbled
at once heels-over-head into the pit. After having fallen to a
considerable depth, two dragons with a chariot came to his aid,
and an ape helped him to get into the vehicle. Presently how-
ever came on a storm with thunder and lightning, so dreadful
that the doctor was thrown out, and sunk in a tempestuous sea
to a vast depth. He contrived, however, to lay hold of a rock,
and here to secure himself a footing. He looked down, and per-
ceived a great gulf, in which lay floating many of the vulgar,
and not a few emperors, kings, princes, and such as had been
mighty lords. Faustus with a sudden impulse cast himself
into the midst of the flames with which they were surrounded,
with the desire to snatch one of the damned souls from the pit.
But just as he thought he had caught him by the hand, the
miserable wretch slided from between his fingers, and sank
again.

At length the doctor became wholly exhausted with the fatigue
he had undergone, with the smoke and the fog, with the stifling,
sulphureous air, with the tempestuous blasts, with the alternate
extremes of heat and cold, and with the clamours, the lamenta-
tions, the agonies, and the bowlings of the damned everywhere
around him, — when, just in the nick of time, Beelzebub appeared
to him again, and invited him once more to ascend the saddle,
which he had occupied during his infernal journey. Here he fell
asleep, and, when he awoke, found himself in his own bed in his
house. He then set himself seriously to reflect on what had
passed. At one time he believed that he had been really in hell,
and had witnessed all its secrets. At another he became per-
suaded that he had been subject to an illusion only, and that the
devil had led him through an imaginary scene, which was truly
the case ; for the devil had taken care not to show him the real
hell, fearing that it might have caused too great a terror, and

2o6 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

have induced him to repent him of his misdeeds perhaps before
it was too late.

It so happened that, once upon a time, the Emperor Charles
V. was at Innspruck, at a time when Faustus also resided there.
His courtiers informed the emperor that Faustus was in the
town, and Charles expressed a desire to see him. He was intro-
duced. Charles asked him whether he could really perform such
wondrous feats as were reported of him. Faustus modestly re-
pHed, inviting the emperor to make trial of his skill. " Then,"
said Charles, " of all the eminent personages I have ever read
of, Alexander the Great is the man who most excites my t:uriosity,
and whom it would most gratify my wishes to see in the very
form in which he lived." Faustus rejoined that it was out of his
power truly to raise the dead, but that he had spirits at his com-
mand who had often seen that great conqueror, and that Faustus
would willingly place him before the emperor as he required.
He conditioned that Charles should not speak to him, nor at-
tempt to touch him. The emperor promised compliance. After
a few ceremonies therefore, Faustus opened a door, and brought
in Alexander exactly in the form in which he had lived, with the
same garments, and every circumstance corresponding. Alex-
ander made his obeisance to the emperor, and walked several
times round him. The queen of Alexander was then introduced
in the same manner. Charles just then recollected he had read
that Alexander had a wart on the nape of his neck ; and with
proper precautions Faustus allowed the emperor to examine the
apparition by this test. Alexander then vanished.

As Doctor Faustus waited in court, he perceived a certain
knight, who had fallen asleep in a bow-window, with his head
out at window. The whim took the doctor, to fasten on his
brow the antlers of a stag. Presently the knight was roused
from his nap, when with all his efforts he could not draw in his
head on account of the antlers which grew upon it. The cour-
tiers laughed exceedingly at the distress of the knight, and, when
they had sufficiently diverted themselves, Faustus took off his
conjuration, and set the knight at liberty.

Soon after Faustus retired from Innspruck. Meanwhile the
knight, having conceived a high resentment against the conjuror

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

waylaid him with seven horsemen on the road by which he had
to pass. Faustus however perceived them, and immediately
made himself invisible. Meanwhile the knight spied on every
side to discover the conjuror ; but, as he was thus employed, he
heard a sudden noise of drums and trumpets and cymbals, and
saw a regiment of horse advancing against him. He immediately
turned off in another direction ; but was encountered by a second
regiment of horse. This occurred no less than six times ; and
the knight and his companions were compelled to surrender at
discretion. These regiments were so many devils ; and Faustus
now appeared in a new form as the general of this army. He
obliged the knight and his party to dismount, and give up their
swords. Then, with a seeming generosity, he gave them new
horses and new swords. But this was all enchantment. The
swords presently turned into switches \ and the horses, plunging
into a river on their road, vanished from beneath their riders,
who were thoroughly drenched in the stream, and scarcely es-
caped with their lives.

Many of Faustus's delusions are rather remarkable as tricks
of merry vexation, than as partaking of those serious injuries
which we might look for in an implement of hell. In one in-'
stance he inquired of a countryman who was driving a load of
hay, what compensation he would judge reasonable for the doc-
tor's eating as much of his hay as he should be inclined to. The
waggoner replied that for half a stiver (one farthing) he should
be welcome to eat as much as he pleased. The doctor presently
fell to, and ate at such a rate, that the peasant was frightened
lest the whole load should be consumed. He therefore offered
Faustus a gold coin, value twenty-seven shillings, to be off his
bargain. The doctor took it ; and, when the countryman came
to his journey's end, he found his cargo undiminished even by a.
single blade.

Another time, as Faustus was walking along the road near
Brunswick, the whim took him of asking a waggoner who was
driving by, to treat him with a ride in his vehicle. "No, I will
not," replied the boor; " my horses will have enough to do to
drag their proper load." " You churl," said the doctor, " since
you will not let your wheels carry me, you. shall carry them your;-'

208 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

self as far as from the gates of the city." The wheek then de-
tached themselves, and flew through the air, to the gates of the
town from which they came. At the same time the horses fell
to the ground, and were utterly unable to raise themselves up.
The countryman, frightened, fell on his knees to the doctor, and
promised, if he would forgive him, never to offend in like manner
again. Faustus now, relenting a little, bade the waggoner take a
handful of sand from the road, and scatter on the horses, and
they would be welL At the same time he directed his man to
go to the four gates of Brunswick, and he would find his wheels,
one at each gate.

In another instance, Faustus went into a fair, mounted on a
noble beast, richly caparisoned, the sight of which presently
brought all the horse-fanciers about him.' 'After considerable
haggling, he at last disposed of his horse to a dealer for a hand-
some price, only cautioning him at parting, how he rode the
horse to water. The dealer, despising the caution that had been
given him, turned his horse the first thing towards thie river. He
had however no sooner plunged in, than the horse vanished, and
the rider found himself seated on a saddle of straw, in the middle
of the stream. With difficulty he waded to the shore, and
immediately enquiring out the doctor's inn, went to him to
complain of the cheat. He was directed to Faustus's room, and
entering found the conjuror on his bed, apparently asleep. He
called to him lustily, but the doctor took no notice. Worked up
beyond his patience, he next laid hold of Faustus's foot, that he
might rouse him the more effectually. What was his surprise,
to find the doctor's leg and foot come off in his hand ! Faustus
screamed, apparently in agony of pain, and the dealer ran out of
the room as fast as he could, thinking that he had the devil
behind him.

In one instance three young noblemen applied to Faustus,
having been very desirous to be present at the marriage of the
son of the Duke of Bavaria at Mentz, but having overstaid the
time in which it would have been possible by human means to
accomplish the journey, Faustus, to oblige them, led them into
his garden, and, spreading a large mantle upon a grass-plot,
desired them to step on it, and placed himself in the midst. He

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCElRS. 209

then recited a certain form of conjuration. At the same time he
conditioned with them, that they should on no account speak to
any one at the marriage, and, if spoken to, should not answer
again. They were carried invisibly through the air, and arrived
in excellent time. At a certain moment they became visible, but
were still bound to silence. One of them however broke the in-
junction, and amused himself with the courtiers. The conse-
quence was that, when the other two were summoned by the
doctor to return, he was left behind. There was something so
extraordinary in their sudden appearance, and the subsequent
disappearance of the others, that he who remained was put in
prison, and threatened with the torture the next day, if he would
not make a full disclosure. Faustus, however, returned before
break of day, opened the gates of the prison, laid all the guards
asleep, and carried off the delinquent in triumph.

On one occasion Faustus, having resolved to pass a jovial
evening, took some of his old college-companions, and invited
them to make free with the Archbishop of Saltzburgh's cellar.
They took a ladder, and scaled the wall. They seated them-
selves round, and placed a three-legged stool, with bottles and
glasses in the middle. They were in the heart of their mirth,
when the butler made his appearance, and began to cry thieves
with all his might. The doctor at once conjured him, so that he
could neither speak nor move. There he was obliged to sit,
while Faustus and his companions tapped every vat in the cellar.
They then carried him along with them in triumph. At length
they came to a lofty tree, where Faustus ordered them to stop ;
and the butler was in the greatest fright, apprehending that they
would do no less than hang him. The doctor however was con-
tented by his art to place him on the topmost branch, where he
was obliged to remain trembling and almost dead with the cold,
till certain peasants came out to their work, whom he hailed,
and finally with great difficulty they rescued him from his painful
eminence, and placed him safely on the ground.

On another occasion Faustus entertained several of the junior
members of the university of Wittenberg at his chambers. One
of them, referring to the exhibition the doctor had made of Alex-
ander the Great to the Emperor Charles V., said it would gratify

Sio UVES OF THE NECROMANCER!^.

him above all things, if he could once behold the famous Helett
of Greece, whose beauty was so great as to have roused all the
princes of her country to arms, and to have occasioned a ten
years* war. Faustus consented to indulge his curiosity, provided
all the company would engage to be merely mute spectators of
the scene. This being promised, he left the room, and presently
brought in Helen. She was precisely as Homer has described
her, when she stood by the side of Priam on the walls of Troy,
looking on the Grecian chiefs. Her features were irresistibly
attractive ; and her full, moist lips were redder than the summer
cherries. Faustus shortly after obliged his guests with her bust
in marble, from which several copies were taken, no one knowing
the name of the original artist.

No long time elapsed after this, when the doctor was engaged
in delivering a course of lectures on Homer at Erfurth, one of
the principal cities of Germany. It having been suggested to
him that it would very much enhance the interest of his lectures,
if he would exhibit to the company the heroes of Greece exactly
as they appeared to their contemporaries, Faustus obligingly
yielded to the proposal. The heroes of the Trojan war walked
in procession before the astonished auditors, no less lively in the
representation than Helen had been shown before, and each of
them with some characteristic attitude and striking expression
of countenanc^.

When the doctor happened to be at Frankfort, there came there
four conjurors, who obtained vast applause by the trick of cutting
off one another's heads, and fastening them on again. Faustus
was exasperated at this proceeding, and regarded them as laying
claim to a skill superior to his own. He went, and was invisibly
present at their exhibition. They placed beside them a vessel
with hquor which they pretended was the elixir of life, into which
at each time they threw a plant resembling the lily, which no
sooner touched the liquor than its buds began to unfold, and
shortly it appeared in full blossom. The chief conjuror watched
his opportunity ; and, when the charm was complete, made no
more ado but struck off the head of his fellow that was next to
him, and dipping it in the liquor, adjusted it to the shoulders,
where it became as securely fixed as before the operation. This

Lives of The necromancers, %it

was repeated a second and a third time. At length it came to
the turn of the chief conjuror to have his head smitten offv
Faustus stood by invisibly, and at the proper time broke off th^
flower of the lily without any one being aware of it. The head)
therefore, of the principal conjuror was struck off ; but in vaiA
was it steeped in the liquor. The other conjurors were at a loss
to account for the disappearance of the lily, and fumbled for a
long time with the old sorcerer's head, which would not stick on
in any position in which it could be placed.

Faustus was in great favour with the Prince of Anhalt. On
one occasion, after residing some days in his court, he said to the
prince, " Will your highness do me the favour to partake of a
small collation at a castle which belongs to me out at your city-
gates?" The prince graciously consented. The prince and
princess accompanied the doctor, and found a castle which
Faustus had erected by magic during the preceding night. The
castle, with five lofty towers, and two great gates, inclosing a
spacious court, stood in the midst of a beautiful lake, stocked
with all kinds of fish, and every variety of water-fowl. The court
exhibited all sorts of animals, beside birds of every colour and
song, which flitted from tree to tree. The doctor then ushered
his guests into the hall, with an ample suite of apartments,
branching off on each side. In one of the largest they found
a banquet prepared, with the pope's plate of gold, which Me-
phistophiles had borrowed for the day. The viands were of the
most delicious nature, with the choicest wines in the world.
The banquet being over, Faustus conducted the prince and
princess back to the palace. But, before they had gone far,
happening to turn their heads, they saw the whole castle blown
up, and all that had been prepared for the occasion vanish at
once in a vast volume of fire.

One Christmas-time Faustus gave a grand entertainment to
certain distinguished persons of both sexes at Wittenberg. To
render the scene more splendid, he contrived to exhibit a memo-
rable inversion of the seasons. As the company approached the
doctor's house, they were surprised to find, though there was a
heavy snow through the neighbouring fields, that Faustus's
court and garden bore not the least marks of the season, but

14— a

isii . LIVES 01^ Tnn NECROMAMCEIiS.

on the cOrtlr^ry were green and blooming as in the height of
summer. There was an appearance of the freshest vegetation,
together with a beautiful vineyard, abounding with grapes, figs,
raspberries, and an exuberance of the finest fruits. The large,
red Provence roses, were as sweet to the scent as the eye, and
looked perfectly fresh and sparkling with dew.

As Faustus was now approaching the last year of his term, he
seemed to resolve to pamper his appetite with every species of
luxury. He carefully accumulated all the materials of voluptu-
ousness and magnificence. He was particularly anxious in the
selection of women who should serve for his pleasures. He had
one Englishwoman, one Hungarian, one French, two of Ger-
many, and two from different parts of Italy, all of them eminent
for the perfections which characterised their different countries.

As Faustus's demeanour was particularly engaging, there
were many respectable persons in the city in which he lived that
became interested in his welfare. These applied to a certain
monk of exemplary purity of life and devotion, and urged him
-to do everything he could to rescue the doctor from impending
destruction. The monk began with him with tender and pathetic
remonstrances. He then drew a fearful picture of the wrath of
God, and the eternal damnation which would certainly ensue.
He reminded the doctor of his extraordinary gifts and graces,
-and told him how different an issue might reasonably have been
■expected from him. Faustus listened attentively to all the good
monk said, but replied mournfully that it was too late, that he
had despised and insulted the Lord, that he had deliberately
sealed a solemn compact to the devil, and that there was no pos-
sibility of going back. The monk answered, " You are mistaken.
Gry to the Lord for grace ; and it shall still be given. Show true
remorse ; confess your sins ; abstain for the future from all acts
•of sorcery and diabolical interference ; and you may rely on final
salvation." The doctor however felt that all endeavours would
be hopeless. He found in himself an incapacity for true re-
pentance. And finally the devil came to him, reproached him
for breach of contract in listening to the pious expostulations of
a saint, threatened that in case of infidelity he would take him
•away to hell even before his time, and frightened the doctor into

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, »i3

the act of signing a fresh contract in ratification of that which he
had signed before.

At length Faustus ultimately arrived at the end of the term for
which he had contracted with the devil. For two or three years
before it expired, his character gradually altered. He became
subject to fits of despondency, was no longer susceptible of mirth
and amusement, and reflected with bitter agony on the close in
which the whole must terminate. During the last month of his
period, he no longer sought the services of his infernal ally, but
with the utmost unwillingness saw his arrival. But Mephisto-
philes now attended him unbidden, and treated him with biting
scoffs and reproaches. " You have well studied the Scriptures,"
he said, " and ought to have known that your safety lay in
worshipping God alone. You sinned with your eyes open, and
can by no means plead ignorance. You thought that twenty-
four years was a term that would have no end ; and you now see
how rapidly it is flitting away. The term for which you sold
yourself to the devil is a very diflerent thing ; and, after the lapse
of thousands of ages, the prospect before you will be still as
unbounded as ever. You were warned ; you were earnestly
pressed to repent ; but now it is too late."

After the demon Mephistophiles had long tormented Faustus
in this manner, he suddenly disappeared, consigning him over
to wretchedness, vexation, and despair.

The whole twenty-four years were now expired. The day be-
fore, Mephistophiles again made his appearance, holding in his
hand the bond which the doctor had signed with his blood,
giving him notice that the next day, the devil, his master, would
come for him, and advising him to hold himself in readiness.
Faustus, it seems, had earned himself much good will among
the younger members of the university by his agreeable
manners, by his wiUingness to oblige them, and by the extra-
ordinary spectacles with which he occasionally diverted them.
This day he resolved to pass in a friendly farewell. He invited
a number of them to meet him at a house of public reception, in
a hamlet adjoining to the city. He bespoke a large room in the
house for a banqueting room, another apartment overhead
for his guests to sleep in, and a smaller chamber at a little dis-

«4 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

tance for himself. He furnished his table with abundance
of delicacies and wines. He endeavoured to appear among
them in high spirits ; but his heart was inwardly sad.

When the entertainment was over, Faustus addressed them,
telling them that this was the last day of his life, reminding them
of the wonders with which he had frequently astonished them,
and informing them of the condition upon which he had held
this power. They, one and all, expressed the deepest sorrow at
the intelligence. They had had the idea of something unlawful
in his proceedings ; but their notions had been very far from
coming up to the truth. They regretted exceedingly that he had
not been unreserved in his communications at an earlier period.
They would have had recourse in his behalf to the means of re-
ligion, and have apphed to pious men, desiring them to employ
their power to intercede with heaven in his favour. Prayer and
penitence might have done much for him ; and the mercy
of heaven was unbounded. They advised him still to call upon
God, and endeavour to secure an interest in the merits of the
Saviour.

Faustus assured them that it was all in vain, and that
his tragical fate was inevitable. He led them to their sleeping
apartment, and recommended to them to pass the night as they
could, but by no means, whatever they might happen to hear, to
come out of it; as their interference could in no way be
beneficial to him, and might be attended with the most serious
injury to themselves. They lay still therefore, as he had enjoined
them ; but not one of them could close his eyes.

between twelve and one in the night they heard first a furious
. storm of wind round all sides of the house, as if it would have
torn away the walls from their foundations. This no sooner
somewhat abated, than a noise was heard of discordant and
violent hissing, as if the house was full of all sorts of venomous
reptiles, but which plainly proceeded from Faustus*s chamber.
Next they heard the doctor's room door vehemently burst open,
and cries for help uttered with dreadful agony, but a half-sup-
pressed voice, which presently grew fainter and fainter. Then
everything becanae still, as if the everlasting motion of the worjd
was suspended.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 215

When at length it became broad day, the students went in a
body into the doctor's apartment. But he was no where to be
seen. Only the walls were found smeared with his blood, and
marks as if his brains had been dashed out. His body was
finally discovered at some distance from the house, his limbs
dismembered, and marks of great violence about the features of
his face. The students gathered up the mutilated parts of his
body, and afforded them private burial at the temple of Mars in
the village where he died.

A ludicrous confusion of ideas has been produced by some
persons from the similarity of names of Faustus, the supposed
magician of Wittenberg, and Faust or Fust of Mentz, the in-
ventor, or first establisher, of the art of printing. It has been
alleged that the exact resemblance of the copies of books pub-
blished by the latter, when no other mode of multiplying copies
was known but by the act of transcribing, was found to be such
as could no way be accounted for by natural means, and that
therefore it was imputed to the person who presented these
copies, that he must necessarily be assisted by the devil. It has
further been stated, that Faust, the printer, swore the craftsmen
he employed at his press to inviolable secrecy, that he might the
more securely keep up the price of his books. But this notion
of the identity of the two persons is entirely groundless. Faustus,
the magician, is described in the romance as having been born
in 1491, twenty-five years after the period at which the printer is
understood to have died, and there is no one coincidence between
the histories of the two persons, beyond the similarity of names,
and a certain mystery (or magical appearance) that inevitably
adheres to the practice of an art hitherto unknown. If any
secret reference had been intended in the romance to the real
character of the illustrious introducer of an art which has been
productive of such incalculable benefits to mankind, it would be
impossible to account for such a marvellous inconsistence in the
chronology.

Others have carried their scepticism so far, as to have started
a doubt whether there was ever really such a person as Faustus
of Wittenberg, the alleged magician. But the testimony of
Wierus, Philip Camerarius, Melancthon and others, his con-

Si6 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

temporaries, sufficiently refutes this supposition. The fact is,
that there was undoubtedly such a man, who, by sleights of
dexterity, made himself a reputation as if there was something
supernatural in his performances, and that he was probably also
regarded with a degree of terror and abhorrence by the supersti-
tious. On this theme was constructed a romance, which once
possessed the highest popularity, and furnished a subject to the
dramatical genius of Marlowe, Lessing, Goethe, and others. — It
sufficiently remarkable, that the notoriety of this romance
eems to have suggested to Shakespeare the idea of sending the
rand conception of his brain, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, to
finish his education at the university of Wittenberg.

And here it may not be uninstructive to remark the different
tone of the record of the acts of Ziito, the Bohemian, and Faustus
of Wittenburg, though little more than half a century elapsed
between the periods at which they were written. Dubravius,
bishop of Olmutz in Moravia, to whose pen we are indebted for
what we know of Ziito, died in the year 1553. He has deemed
it not unbecoming to record in his national history of Bohemia,
the achievements of this magician, who, he says, exhibited them
before Wenceslaus, king of the country, at the celebration of his
marriage. A waggon-load of sorcerers arrived at Prague on that
occasion for the entertainment of the company. But, at the
close of that century, the exploits of Faustus were no longer
deemed entitled to a place in national history, but were more
appropriately taken for the theme of a romance. Faustus and
his performances were certainly contemplated with at least as
much horror as the deeds of Ziito, But popular credulity was
no longer wound to so high a pitch : the marvels effected by
Faustus are not represented as challenging the observation of
thousands at a public court, and on the occasion of a royal festi-
val. They " hid their diminished heads," and were performed
comparatively in a comer.

SABELUCUS.

A pretended niagician is recorded by Naude, as living about
t^iis time, named Georgius Sabellicus, who, he says, if loftiness
^nd arrogance of assumption were enough to es^ab]is}i a clairq

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 217

to the possession of supernatural gifts, would beyond all contro-
versy be recognized for a chief and consummate sorcerer. It
was his ambition by the most sounding appellations of this nature
to advance his claim to immortal reputation. He called himself,
" The most accomplished Georgius Sabellicus, a second Faustus,
the spring and centre of necromantic art, an astrologer, a magi-
cian, consummate in chiromancy, and in agromancy, pyromancy
and hydromancy inferior to none that ever lived." I mention
this the rather, as affording an additional proof how highly
Faustus was rated at the time in which he is said to have
flourished.

It is specially worthy of notice, that Naude, whose book is a
sort of register of all the most distinguished names in the annals
of necromancy, drawn up for the purpose of vindicating their
honour, nowhere mentions Faustus, except once in this slight
and cursory way.

PARACELSUS.

Paracelsus, or, as he styled himself, Philippus Aureolus Theo-
phrastus Bombastus Paracelsus de Hohenheim, was a man of
great notoriety and eminence, about the same time as Dr. Faustus.
He was born in the year 1493, and died in 1541. His father is
said to have lived in some repute ; but the son early became a
wanderer in the world, passing his youth in the occupation of
foreteUing future events by the stars and by chiromancy, invok-
ing the dead, and performing various operations of alchemy and
magic. He states Trithemius to have been his instructor in the
science of metals. He was superficial in literature, and says of
himself that at one time he did not open a book for ten years
together. He visited the mines of Bohemia, Sweden and the
East to perfect himself in metallic knowledge. He travelled
through Prussia, Lithuania, Poland, Transylvania and Illyria,
conversing indifferently with physicians and old women, that he
might extract from them the practical secrets of their art. He
visited Egypt, Tartary and Constantinople, at which last place,
as he says, he learned the transmutation of metals and the philo-
sopher's stone. He boasts also of the elixir of life, by means of
which he could prolong the life of man to the age of the ?intedi-.

2i8 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

luvians. He certainly possessed considerable sagacity and a
happy spirit of daring, which induced him to have recourse to
the application of mercury and opium in the cure of diseases,
when the regular physicians did not venture on the use of them.
He therefore was successfully employed by certain eminent per-
sons in desperate cases, and was consulted by Erasmus. He
gradually increased in fame, and in the year 1526 was chosen
professor of natural philosophy and surgery in the university
of Bale. Here he delivered lectures in a very bold and pre-
sumptuous style. He proclaimed himself the monarch of medi-
cine, and publicly burned the writings of Galen and Avicenna as
pretenders and impostors.

This however was the acme of his prosperity. His system
was extremely popular for one year ; but then he lost himself by
brutality and intemperance. He had drunk water only for the
first five-and-twenty years of his life ; but now indulged himself
in beastly crapulence with the dregs of society, and scarcely ever
took off his clothes by day or night. After one year therefore
spent at Bale, he resumed his former vagabond life, and, having
passed through many vicissitudes, some of them of the most ab-
ject poverty, he died at the age of forty-eight.

Paracelsus in fact exhibited in his person the union of a quack,
a boastful and impudent pretender, with a considerable degree
of natural sagacity and shrewdness. Such a union is not un-
conmion in the present day ; but it was more properly in its
place, when the cultivation of the faculties of the mind was
more restricted than now, and the law of criticism of facts and
evidence was nearly unknown. He took advantage of the cre-
dulity and love of wonder incident to the generality of our species;
and, by dint of imposing on others, succeeded in no small de-
gree in imposing on himself. His intemperance and arrogance
of demeanour gave the suitable finish to his character. He
therefore carefully cherished in those about him the idea that
there was in him a kind of supernatural virtue, and that he had
the agents of an invisible world at his command. In particular
he gave out that he held conferences with a familiar or demon,
whom, for the convenience of consulting, he was in the habit of
arrying about with him in the hilt of his sword.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 219

CARDAN

Jerome Cardan, who was only a few years younger than Para-
celsus, was a man of a very different character. He had consider-
able refinement and discrimination, and ranked among the first
scholars of his day. He, is, however, most of all distinguished
for the memoirs he has left us of his life, which are characterised
by a frankness and unreserve which are almost without a parallel.
He had undoubtedly a considerable spice of madness in his com-
position. He says of himself, that he was liable to extraordinary
fits of abstraction and elevation of mind, which by their intense-
ness became so intolerable, that he gladly had recourse to very
severe bodily pain by way of getting rid of them. That in such
cases he would bite his lips till they bled, twist his fingers almost
to dislocation, and whip his legs with rods, which he found a
great relief to him. That he would talk purposely of subjects
which he knew were particularly offensive to the company he was
in ; that he argued on any side of a subject, without caring
whether he was right or wrong ; and that he would spend whole
nights in gaming, often venturing, as the stake he played for, the
furniture of his house, and his wife's jewels.

Cardan describes three things of himself, which he habitually
experienced, but respecting which he had never unbosomed him-
self to any of his friends. The first was, a capacity which he
felt in himself of abandoning his body in a sort of ecstacy when-
ever he pleased. He felt in these cases a sort of splitting of the
heart, as if his soul was about to withdraw, the sensation spread-
ing over his whole frame, like the opening of a door for the dis-
missal of its guest. His apprehension was, that he was out of
his body, and that by an energetic exertion he still retained a
small hold of his corporeal figure. The second of his peculiar-
ities was, that he saw, when he pleased, whatever he desired to
see, not through the force of imagination, but with his material
organs : he saw groves, animals, orbs, as he willed. When he
was a child, he saw these things, as they occurred, without any
previous volition or anticipation that such a thing was about to
happen. But, after he had arrived at years of maturity, he saw

2ao LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

them only when he desired, and such things as he desired.
These images were in perpetual succession, one after another.
The thing incidental to him which he mentions in the third place
was, that he could not recollect anything that ever happened
to him, whether good, ill, or indifferent, of which he had not
been admonished, and that a very short time before, in a dream.
These things served to show of what importance he was in his
own eyes, and also, which is the matter he principally brings it
to prove, the subtlety and delicacy of his animal nature.

Cardan speaks uncertainly and contradictorily as to his having
a genius or demon perpetually attending him, advising him of
what was to happen, and forewarning him of sinister events.
He concludes, however, that he had no such attendant, but that
it was the excellence of his nature, approaching to immortality.
He was much addicted to the study of astrology, and laid claim
to great skill as a physician. He visited the court of London,
and calculated the nativity of King Edward VI. He was sent
for as a physician by Cardinal Beaton, Archbishop of St. Andrews,
whom, according to M civile,^ he recovered to speech and health,
and the historian appears to attribute the cure to magic. He
calculated the nativity of Jesus Christ, which was imputed to
him as an impious undertaking, inasmuch as it supposed the
Creator of the world to be subject to the influence of the stars.
He also predicted his own death, and is supposed by some to
have forwarded that event, by abstinence from food at the age
of seventy-five, that he might not belie his prediction.

QUACKS, WHO IN COOL. BLOOD UNDERTOOK TO OVER-
REACH MANKIND.

Hitherto we have principally passed such persons in review,
as seem to have been in part at least the victims of their own
delusions. But besides these there has always been a numerous
class of men, who, with minds perfectly disengaged and free, have
applied themselves to concert the means of overreaching the
simplicity, or baffling the penetration, of those who were merely
spectators, and uninitiated in the mystery of the arts that were
practised upon them. Such was no doubt the case with the
* Memoirs, p. 14,

Lives of the necromancers. iat

speaking heads and statues, which were sometimes exhibited in
the ancient oracles. Such was the case with certain optical de-
lusions, which were practised on the unsuspecting, and were
contrived to produce on them the effect of supernatural revela-
tions. Such is the story of Bel and the Dragon in the book of
Apocrypha, where the priests daily placed before the idol twelve
measures of flour, and forty sheep, and six vessels of wine, pre-
tending that the idol consumed all these provisions, when in fact
they entered the temple by night, by a door under the altar, and
removed them.

BENVENUTO CELLINI.

We have a story minutely related by Benvenuto Cellini in his
Life, which it is now known was produced by optical delusion,
but which was imposed upon the artist and his companions as
altogether supernatural. It occurred a very short time before
the death of Pope Clement VII. in 1534, and is thus detailed.
It took place in the Coliseum at Rome.

" It came to pass, through a variety of odd accidents, that
I made acquaintance with a Sicilian priest, who was a man of
genius, and well versed in the Greek and Latin languages. Hap-
pening one day to have some conversation with him, where the
subject turned upon the art of necromancy, I, who had a great
desire to know something of the matter, told him that I had all
my life had a curiosity to be acquainted with the mysteries of
this art. The priest made answer, that the man must be of a
resolute and steady temper who entered on that study. I re-
plied that I had fortitude and resolution enough to desire to be
initiated in it. The priest subjoined, * If you think you have the
heart to venture, I will give you all the satisfaction you can de-
sire.' Thus we agreed to enter upon a scheme of necromancy.

" The priest one evening prepared to satisfy me, and desired
me to look for a companion or two. I invited one Vincenzio
Romoli, who was my intimate acquaintance, and he brought with
him a native of Pistoia, who cultivated the art of necromancy
himself. We repaired to the Coliseum ; and the priest, accord-
ing to the custom of conjurors, began to draw circles on the
ground, with the most impressive ceremonies imaginable. He

223 LIVES OF THE NECHOMANCERS.

likewise brought with him all sorts of precious perfumes and fire,
with some compositions which diffused noisome and bad odours.
As soon as he was in readiness, he made an opening to the circle,
and took us by the hand, and ordered the other necromancer, his
partner, to throw perfumes into the fire at a proper time, intrust-
ing the care of the fire and the perfumes to the rest ; and then
he began his incantations.

" This ceremony lasted above an hour and a half, when there
appeared several legions of devils, so that the amphitheatre was
quite filled with them. I was busy about the perfumes, when the
priest, who knew that there was a sufficient number of infernal
spirits, turned about to me, and said, *Benvenuto, ask them some-
thing.' I answered, * Let them bring me into company with my
Sicilian mistress, Angelica.' That night we obtained no answer
of any sort ; but I received great satisfaction in having my curi-
osity so far indulged.

^* The necromancer told me that it was requisite we should go
a second time, assuring me that I should be satisfied in whatever
I asked ; but that I must bring with me a boy that had never
known woman. I took with me my apprentice, who was about
twelve years of age ; with the same Vincenzio Romoli, who had
been my companion the first time, and one Agnolino Gaddi, an
intimate acquaintance, whom I likewise prevailed on to assist at
the ceremony. When we came to the place appointed, the priest,
having made his preparations as before with the same and even
more striking ceremonies, placed us within the circle, which he
had ^drawn with a more wonderful art, and in a more solemn
manner, than at our former meeting. Thus having committed
the care of the perfumes and the fire to my friend Vincenzio, who
was assisted by Gaddi, he put into my hands a pintacolo, or
magical chart, and bid me turn it towards the places to which
he should direct me ; and under the pintacolo I held my appren-
tice. The necromancer, having begun to make his most tre-
mendous invocations, called by their names a multitude of
demons who were the leaders of the several legions, and ques-
tioned them, by the virtue and power of the eternal, uncreated
God, who lives for ever, in the Hebrew langfuage, as also in Latin
and Greek ; insomuch that the amphitheatre was filled, almost

LIVES OP THE J^ECEOMANCEHS, 223

in an instant, with demons a hundred times more numerous than,
at the former conjuration. Vincenzio meanwhile was busied in
making a fire with the assistance of Gaddi, and burning a great
quantity of precious perfumes. I, by the direction of the necro*
mancer, again desired to be in company with my Angelica. He
then turning upon me said, ' Know, they have declared that in
the space of a month you shall be in her company.'

" He then requested me to stand by him resolutely, because
the legions were now above a thousand more in number than he
had designed ; and besides these were the most dangerous ; so
that, after they had answered my question, it behoved him to be
civil to them, and dismiss them quietly. At the same time the
boy under the pintacolo was in a terrible fright, saying, that there
were in the place a million of fierce men who threatened to de-
stroy us ; and that, besides, there were four armed giants of
enormous stature, who endeavoured to break into our circle.
During this time, while the necromancer, trembling with fear,
endeavoured by mild means to dismiss them in the best way he
could, Vincenzio, who quivered like an aspen leaf, took care of
the perfumes. Though I was as much afraid as any of them, I
did my utmost to conceal it ; so that I greatly contributed to in-
spire the rest with resolution : but the truth is, I gave myself
over for a dead man, seeing the horrid fright the necromancer
was in.

" The boy had placed his head between his knees ; and said,
* In this attitude will I die ; for we shall all surely perish.' I
told him that those demons were under us, and what he saw was
smoke and shadow ; so bid him hold up his head and take cou-
rage. No sooner did he look up, than he cried out, * The whole
amphitheatre is burning, and the fire is just falling on us.' So,
covering his eyes with his hands, he again exclaimed, that de-
struction was inevitable, and he desired to see no more. The
necromancer intreated me to have a good heart, and to take care
to bum proper perfumes ; upon which I turned to Vincenzio,
and bade him burn all the most precious perfumes he had. At
the same time I cast my eyes upon Gaddi, who was terrified to
such a degree, that he could scarcely distinguish objects, and
seemed to be half dead. Seeing him in this condition, I said to

fi24 LIVES OP THE NECROMANCERS.

him, ' Gaddi, upon these occasions a man should not yield to
fear, but stir about to give some assistance ; so come directly,
and put on more of these perfumes/ Gaddi accordingly at-
tempted to move ; but the effect was annoying both to our sense
of hearing and smell, and overcame the perfumes.

" The boy perceiving this, once more ventured to raise his head,
and, seeing me laugh, began to take courage, and said, * The
devils are flying away with a vengeance.' In this condition we
staid till the bell rang for morning prayers. The boy again told
us that there remained but few devils, and those were at a great
distance. When the magician had performed the rest of his
ceremonies, he stripped off his gown, and took up a wallet full of
books, which he had brought with him. We all went out of the
circle together, keeping as close to each other as we possibly
could, especially the boy, who placed himself in the middle, hold-
ing the necromancer by the coat, and me by the cloak.

" As we were going to our houses in the quarter of Banchi, the
boy told us that two of the demons whom we had seen at the
amphitheatre, went on before us leaping and skipping, sometimes
running upon the roofs of the houses, and sometimes on the
ground. The priest declared that, as often as he had entered
magic circles, nothing so extraordinary had ever happened to
him. As we went along, he would fain have persuaded me to
assist at the consecrating a book, from which he said we should
derive immense riches. We should then ask the demons to dis-
cover to us the various treasures with which the earth abounds,
which would raise us to opulence and power : but that those love
affairs were mere follies from which no good could be expected.
I made answer that I would readily have accepted his proposal
if I had understood Latin. He assured me that the knowledge
of Latin was nowise material ; but that he could never meet with
a partner of resolution and intrepidity equal to mine, and that
that would be to him an invaluable acquisition." Immediately
subsequent to this scene, Cellini got into one of those scrapes, in
which he was so frequently involved by his own violence and
ferocity; and the connection was never again renewed.

The first remark that arises out of this narrative is, that nothing
is actually done by the supernatural personages which are

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 225

hibited. The magician reports certain answers as given by the
demons ; but these answers do not appear to have been heard
from any lips but those of him who was the creator or cause of
the scene. The whole of the demons, therefore, were merely
figures produced by the magic lantern (which is said to have
been invented by Roger Bacon), or by something of that nature.
The burning of the perfumes served to produce a dense atmo-
sphere, that was calculated to exaggerate, and render more for-
midable and terrific, the figures which were exhibited. The
magic lantern, which is now the amusement only of servant-
maids, and boys at school in their holidays, served at this remote
period, and when the power of optical delusions was unknown,
to terrify men of wisdom and penetration, and make them believe
that legions of devils from the infernal regions were come among
them, to produce the most horrible effects, and suspend and
invert the laws of nature. It is probable that the magician, who
carried home with him a " wallet full of books,'* also carried at
the same time the magic lantern or mirror, with its lights, which
had served him for his exhibition, and that this was the cause of
the phenomenon, that they observed two of the demons which
they had seen at the amphitheatre, going before them on their
return, *' leaping and skipping, sometimes running on the roofs
of the houses, and sometimes on the ground.''^

NOSTRADAMUS.

Michael Nostradamus, a celebrated astrologer, was bom at St.
Remi, in Provence, in the year 1503. He published a " Century
of Prophecies*' in obscure and oracular terms and barbarous
verse, and other works. In the period in which he lived the
pretended art of astrological prediction was in the highest repute;
and its professors were sought for by emperors and kings, and
entertained with the greatest distinction and honour. Henry the
Second of France, moved with his great renown, sent for Nostra-
damus to court, received much gratification from his visit, and
afterward ordered him to Blois, that he might see the princes,
his sons, calculate their horoscopes, and predict their future for-

' Brewster, Letters on Natural Magic, letter iv.

15

826 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

tunes. He was no less in favour afterwards with Charles thQ
Ninth. He died in the year 1566.

DOCTOR DEE,

Dr. John Dee was a man who made a conspicuous figure in
the sixteenth century. He was born at London in the year 1 527.
He was an eminent mathematician, and an indefatigable scholar.
He says of himself, that, having been sent to Cambridge when
he was fifteen, he persisted for several years in allowing himself
only four hours for sleep in the twenty-four, and two for food and
refreshment, and that he constantly occupied the remaining
eighteen (the time for divine service only excepted) in study.
At Cambridge he superintended the exhibition of a Greek play
of Aristophanes, among the machinery of which he introduced
an artificial scarabaeus, or beetle, which flew up to the palace of
Jupiter, with a man on his back, and a basket of provisions.
The ignorant and astonished spectators ascribed this feat to the
art of the magician ; and Dee, annoyed by these suspicions,
found it expedient to withdraw to the continent. Here he
resided first at the University of Louvain, at which place, his
acquaintance was courted by the Dukes of Mantua and Medina,
and from thence proceeded to Paris, where he gave lectures on
EucHdwith singular applause.

In 155 1 he returned to England, and was received with dis-
tinction by Sir John Cheek, and introduced to Secretary Cecil,
and even to King Edward, from whom he received a pension of
one hundred crowns per annum, which he speedily after ex-
changed for a small living in the Church. In the reign of Queen
Mary he was for some time kindly treated ; but afterwards came
into great trouble, and even into danger of his Ufe. He entered
into correspondence with several of the servants of Queen Ehza-
beth at Woodstock, and was charged with practising against
Mary's hfe by enchantments. Upon this accusation, he was
seized and confined ; and, being after several examinations dis-
charged of the indictment, was turned over to Bishop Bonner to
see if any heresy could be found in him. After a tedious perse*
cution he was set at liberty in 1555, and was so little subdued
by what he had suffered, that in the following year he presented

UVES OF THE NECRQMANCEI^S, 1,3;

a petition to the queen, requesting her co-operation in a plan
for preserving and recovering certain monuments of classical
antiquity.

The principal study of Dee, however, at this time lay in astro*
logy ; and accordingly, upon the accession of Elizabeth, Robert
Dudley, her chief favourite, was sent to consult the doctor as to
the aspect of the stars, that they might fix on an auspicious day
for celebrating her coronation. Some years after we find him
again on the continent ; and in 1571, being taken ill at Louvain,
we are told the queen sent over two physicians to accomplish his
ciire. Elizabeth afterwards visited him at his house at Mort-
lake, that she might view his magazine of mathematical instru-
ments and curiosities ; and about this time employed him to
defend her title to countries discovered in different parts of the
globe. He says of himself, that he received the most advan-
tageous offers from Charles V., Ferdinand, Maximilian II., and
Rodolph II., Emperors of Germany, and from the Czar of Mus-
covy an offer of £;iqqo sterling per annum, upon condition that
he would reside in his dominions. All these circumstances were
solemnly attested by Dee in a " Compendious Rehearsal of his
Life and Studies for Half a Century,'' composed at a later period,
and read by him at his house at Mortlake to two commissioners
appointed by Elizabeth to inquire into his circumstances, ac-
companied with evidences and documents to establish the par-
ticulars.*

Had Dee gone no further than this, he would undoubtedly
have ranked among the profoundest scholars and most eminent
geniuses that adorned the reign of the maiden queen. But he
was unfortunately cursed with an ambition that nothing could
satisfy ; and having accustomed his mind to the wildest reveries,
and wrought himself up to an extravagant pitch of enthusiasm,
he pursued a course that involved him in much calamity, and
clouded all his latter days with misery and ruin. He dreamed
perpetually of the philosopher's stone, and was haunted with the
belief of intercourse of a supramundane character. It is almost
impossible to decide among these things, how much was illusion,

« Appendix to Johannes Glastoniensis, edited by Heame.

J5— a

288 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

and how much was forgery. Both were inextricably mixed in his
proceedings ; and this extraordinary victim probably could not
in his most dispassionate moments precisely distinguish what be-
longed to the one, and what to the other.

As Dee was an enthusiast, so he perpetually interposed in his
meditations prayers of the greatest emphasis and fervour. As
he was one day in November, 1582, engaged in these devout
exercises, he says that there appeared to him the angel Uriel at
the west window of his Museum, who gave him a translucent
stone, or crystal^ of a convex form, that had the quality, when
intently surveyed, of presenting apparitions, and even emitting
sounds, in consequence of which the observer could hold con-
versations, ask questions and receive answers from the figures
he saw in the mirror. It was often necessary that the stone
should be turned one way and another in different positions, be-
fore the person who consulted it gained the right focus ; and then
the objects to be observed would sometimes show themselves on
the surface of the stone, and sometime in different parts of the
room by virtue of the action of the stone. It had also this
peculiarity, that only one person, having been named as seer,
could see the figures exhibited, and hear the voices that spoke,
though there might be various persons in the room. It appears
that the person who discerned these visions must have his eyes
and his ears uninterruptedly engaged in* the affair, so that, as
Dee experienced, to render the communication effectual, there
must be two human beings concerned in the scene, one of them
to describe what he saw, and to recite the dialogue that took
place, and the other immediately to commit to paper all that his
partner dictated. Dee for some reason chose for himself the
part of the amanuensis, and had to seek for a companion, who
was to watch the stone, and repeat to him whatever he saw and
heard.

It happened opportunely that, a short time before Dee received
this gift from on high, he contracted a familiar intercourse with
one Edward Kelly of Worcestershire, whom he found specially
qualified to perform the part which it was necessary to Dee to
have adequately filled. Kelly was an extraordinary character,
and in some respects exactly such a person as Dee wanted. He

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 22$

was just twenty-eight years younger than the memorable person-
age, who now received him as an inmate, and was engaged in his
service at a stipulated salary of fifty pounds a year.

Kelly entered upon life with a somewhat unfortunate adven-
ture. He was accused, when a young man, of forgery, brought
to trial, convicted, and lost his ears in the pillory. This mis-
fortune, however, by no means daunted him. He was assidu-
ously engaged in the search for the philosopher's stone. He had
an active mind, great enterprise, and a very domineering temper.
Another adventure in which he had been engaged previously to
his knowledge of Dee, was in digging up the body of a man, who
had been buried only the day before, that he nught compel him
by incantations to answer questions, and discover future events.
There was this difference, therefore, between the two persons
previously to their league. Dee was a man of regular manners
and unspotted life, honoured by the great, and favourably noticed
by crowned heads in different parts of the world ; while Kelly
was a notorious profligate, accustomed to the most licentious
actions, and under no restraint from morals or principle.

One circumstance that occurred early in the acquaintance of
Kelly and Dee it is necessary to mention. It serves strikingly to
illustrate the ascendancy of the junior and impetuous party over
his more gifted senior. Kelly led Dee, we are not told under
what pretence, to visit the celebrated ruins of Glastonbury Abbey
in Somersetshire. Here, as these curious travellers searched
into every comer of the- scene, they met by some rare accident
with a vase containing a certain portion of the actual elixir vitcBj
that rare and precious liquid, so much sought after, which has
the virtue of converting the baser metals into gold and silver.
It had remained here, perhaps, ever since the time of the highly-
gifted St. Dunstan in the tenth century. This they carried off in
triumph : but we are not told of any special use to which they
applied it, till a few years after, when they were both on the con-
tinent.

The first record of their consultations with the supramundane
spirits, was of the date of December 2, 1581, at Lexden Heath,
in the county of Essex ; and from this time they went on in a
regular series of consultations with and inquiries from these

^30 UVBS OP THE NECROMANCERS.

miraculous visitors, a great part of which will appear to the un"-
initiated extremely puerile and ludicrous, but which were com-
mitted to writing with the most scrupulous exactness by Dee, the
first part still existing in manuscript,but the greater portion from
28 May, J 583 to 1608, with some interruptions, having been com-
mitted to the press by Dr. Meric Casaubon in a well-sized folio
in 1659, under the title of '^ A True and Faithful Relation of
what passed between Dr. John Dee and some Spirits, tending,
had it succeeded, to a general alteration of most states and king-
doms of the world."

Kelly and Dee had not long been engaged in these super-
natural colloquies, before an event occurred which gave an en-
tirely new turn to their proceedings. Albert Alaski, a Polish
nobleman, lord palatine of the principality of Siradia, came over
at this time into England, urged, as he said, by a desire per-
sonally to acquaint himself with the glories of the reign of
Elizabeth, and the evidences of her unrivalled talents. The
queen and her favourite, the Earl of Leicester, received him with
every mark of courtesy and attention, and, having shown him all
the wonders of her court at Westminster and Greenwich, sent
him to Oxford, with a command to the dignitaries and heads of
colleges to pay him every attention, and to lay open to his view
all their rarest curiosities. Among other things worthy of notice,
Alaski enquired for the celebrated Dr. Dee, and expressed the
greatest impatience to be acquainted with him.

Just at this juncture the Earl of Leicester happened to spy Dr.
Dee among the crowd who attended at a royal levee. The Earl
immediately advanced towards him ; and, in his frank manner,
having introduced him to Alaski, expressed his intention of
bringing the Pole to dine with the doctor at his house at Mort-
lake. Embarrassed with this unexpected honour. Dee no sooner
got home, than he despatched an express to the earl, honestly
confessing that he should be unable to entertain such guests in
a suitable manner, without being reduced to the expedient oi
selling or pawning his plate, to procure him the means of doing
so. Leicester communicated the doctor's perplexity to Elizabeth;
and the queen immediately dispatched a messenger with a pre*

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 231

sent of forty angels, or twenty pounds, to enable him to receive
his guests as became him,

A great intimacy immediately commenced between Dee and
the stranger. Alaski, though possessing an extensive territory,
was reduced by the prodigality of himself or his ancestors to
much embarrassment; and on the other hand this nobleman
appeared to Dee an instrument well qualified to accomplish his
ambitious purposes. Alaski was extremely desirous to look into
the womb of time ; and Dee, it is likely, suggested repeated hints
of his extraordinaiy power from his possession of the philoso-
pher's stone. After two or three interviews, and much seeming
importunity on the part of the Pole, Dee and Kelly graciously
condescended to admit Alaski as a third party to their secret
meetings with their supernatural visitors, from which the rest of
the world were carefully excluded. Here the two Englishmen
made use of the vulgar artifice of promising extraordinary good
fortune to the person of whom they purposed to make use. By
the intervention of the miraculous stone they told the wondering
traveller, that he should shortly become king of Poland, with the
accession of several other kingdoms, that he should overcome
many armies of Saracens and Paynims, and prove a mighty
conqueror. Dee at the same time complained of the disagreeable
condition in which he was at home, and that Burleigh and Wal-
singham were his malicious enemies. At length they concerted
among themselves, that they — ^Alaski, and Dee and Kelly with
their wives and families — should clandestinely withdraw out of
England, and proceed with all practicable rapidity to Alaski's
territory in the kingdom of Poland. They embarked on this
voyage 21st September, and arrived at Siradia the third of
February following.

At this place, however, the strangers remained little more than
a month. Alaski found his finances in such disorder, that it was
scarcely possible for him to feed the numerous guests he had
brought along with him. The promises of splendid conquests
which Dee and Kelly profusely heaped upon him were of no
avail to supply the deficiency of his present income. And the
elixir they brought from Glastonbury was, as they said, so in-
credibly rich in virtue, that they were compelled to lose much
time in making projection by way of trial, before they could hope

232 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

to arrive at the proper temperament for producing the effect they
desired.

In the following month Alaski with his visitors passed to Cra-
cow, the residence of the kings of Poland. Here they remained
five months, Dee and Kelly perpetually amusing the Pole with
the extraordinary virtue of the stone, which had been brought
from heaven by an angel, and busied in a thousand experiments
with the elixir, and many tedious preparations which they pro-
nounced to be necessary, before the compound could have the
proper effect. The prophecies were uttered with extreme confi-
dence ; but no external indications were afforded to show that in
any way they were likely to be realized. The experiments and
exertions of the laboratory were incessant ; but no transmuta-
tion was produced. At length Alaski found himself unable to
sustain the train of followers he had brought out of England.
With mountains of wealth, the treasures of the world promised,
they were reduced to the most grievous straits for the means of
daily subsistence. Finally the zeal of Alaski diminished ; he had
no longer the same faith in the projectors that had deluded him ;
and he devised a way of sending them forward with letters of
recommendation to Rodolph II., emperor of Germany, at his
imperial seat of Prague,where they arrived on the ninth of August.

Rodolph was a man, whose character and habits of life they
judged excellently adapted to their purpose. Dee had a long
conference with the emperor, in which he explained to him what
wonderful things the spirits promised to this prince, in case he
proved exemplary of life, and obedient to their suggestions, that
he should be the greatest conqueror in the world, and should
take captive the Turk in his city of Constantinople. Rodolph
was extremely courteous in his reception, and sent away Dee with
the highest hopes that he had at length found a personage with
whom he should infalUbly succeed to the extent of his wishes.
He sought, however, a second interview, and was baffled. At one
time the emperor was going to his country palace near Prague,
and at another was engaged in the pleasures of the chase.

He also complained that he was not sufficiently familiar with
the Latin tongue to manage the conferences with Dee in a satis-
factory manner in person. He therefore deputed Curtzius, a man

LIVES OF THE NEd^OMANCMHS. a33

high in his confidence, to enter into the necessary details with
his learned visitor. Dee also contrived to have Spinola, the
ambassador from Madrid to the court of the emperor, to urge his
suit. The final result was that Rodolph declined any further
intercourse with Dee. He turned a deaf ear to his prophecies,
and professed to be altogether void of faith as to his promises
respecting the philosopher's stone. Dee however was led on
perpetually with hopes of better things from the emperor, till the
spring of the year 1 585. At length he was obliged to fly from
Prague, the bishop of Placentia, the pope's nuncio, having it in
command from his holiness to represent to Rodolph how dis-
creditable it was for him to harbour English magicians, heretics,
at his court

From Prague Dee and his followers proceeded to Cracow.
Here he found means of introduction to Stephen, King of Poland,
to whom immediately he insinuated as intelligence from heaven,
that Rodolph, the emperor, would speedily be assassinated, and
that Stephen would succeed him in the throne of Germany.
Stephen appears to have received Dee with more condescension
than Rodolph had done, and was once present at his incanta-
tion and interview, with the invisible spirits. Dee also lured
him on with promises respecting the philosopher's stone. Mean-
while the magician was himself reduced to the strangest expedi-
ents for subsistence. He appears to have daily expected great
riches from the transmutation of metals, and was unwilling to
confess that he and his family were in the meantime almost
starving.

When King Stephen at length became wearied with fruitless
expectation. Dee was fortunate enough to meet with another and
more patient dupe in Rosenburg, a nobleman of considerable
wealth at Treboha in the kingdom of Bohemia. Here Dee ap-
pears to have remained till 1589, when he was sent for home by
Elizabeth. In what manner he proceeded during this interval,
and from whence he drew his supplies, we are only left to con-
jecture; He lured on his victim with the usual temptation, pro-
mising him that he should be King of Poland. In the meantime
it is recorded by him, that, on the ninth of December, 1586, he
arrived at the point of projection, having cut a piece of metal out

^34 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

of a brass warming-pan ; and merely heating it by the fire, and
pouring on it a portion of the elixir, it was presently converted
into pure silver. We are told that he sent the warming-pan and
the piece of silver to Queen Elizabeth, that she might be con-
vinced by her own eyes how exactly they tallied, and that the one
had unquestionably been a portion of the other. About the same
time it is said that Dee and his associate became more free in
their expenditure ; and in one instance it is stated as an example,
that Kelly gave away to the value of four thousand pounds ster-
ling in gold rings on occasion of the celebration of the marriage
of one of his maid-servants. On the twenty-seventh and thirtieth
of July, 1587, Dee has recorded in his journal his gratitude to
God for his unspeakable mercies on those days imparted, which
has been interpreted to mean further acquisitions of wealth by
means of the elixir.

Meanwhile perpetual occasions of dissension occurred between
the two great confederates, Kelly and Dee. They were in many
respects unfitted for each other's society. Dee was aman who, from
his youth upward, had been indefatigable in study and research,
had the consciousness of great talents and intellect, and had
been universally recognised as such, and had possessed a high
character for fervent piety and blameless morals. Kelly was an
impudent adventurer, a man of no principles and of blasted repu-
tation ; yet fertile in resources, full of self-confidence, and of no
small degree of ingenuity. In their mutual intercourse the
audacious adventurer often had the upper hand of the man who
had lately possessed a well-earned reputation. Kelly frequentiy
professed himself tired of enacting the character of interpreter
of the gods under Dee. He found Dee in all cases running
away with the superior consideration; while he, in his own
opinion, best deserved to possess it. The straitness of their cir-
cumstances, and the misery they were occasionally called on
to endure, we may be sure did not improve their good under-
standing. Kelly once and again threatened to abandon his
leader. Dee continually soothed him, and prevailed on him to
stay.

Kelly at length started a very extraordinary proposition. Kelly,
as interpreter to the spirits, and being the only person who heard

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 235

and saw anything, we may presume, made them say whatever he
pleased. Kelly and Dee had both of them wives. Kelly did
not always live harmoniously with the partner of his bed. He
sometimes went so far as to say that he hated her. Dee was
more fortunate. His wife was a person of good family, and had
hitherto been irreproachable in her demeanour. The spirits
one day revealed to Kelly that they must henceforth have their
wives in common. The wife of Kelly was barren, and this curse
could not otherwise be removed. Having started the proposition,
Kelly played the reluctant party. Dee, who was pious and en-
thusiastic, inclined to submit. He first, indeed, started the notion
that it could only be meant that they should live in mutual har-
mony and good understanding. The spirits protested against
this, and insisted upon the literal interpretation. Dee yielded,
and compared his case to that of Abraham, who at the divine
command consented to sacrifice his son Isaac. Kelly alleged
that these spirits, which Dee had hitherto regarded as messen-
gers from God, could be no other than servants of Satan. He
persisted in his disobedience ; and the spirits declared that he
was no longer worthy to be their interpreter, and that another
mediator must be found.

They named Arthur Dee, the son of the possessor of the stone,
a promising and well-disposed boy of only eight years of age.
Dee consecrated the youth accordingly to his high function by
prayers and religious rites for several days together. Kelly took
horse and rode away, protesting that they should meet no more.
Arthur entered upon his office, April 15, 1587. The experiment
proved abortive. He saw something ; but not to the purpose.
He heard no voices* At length Kelly, on the third day, entered
the room unexpectedly, ** by miraculous fortune," as Dee says,
" or a divine fate," sate down between them, and immediately
saw figures, and heard voices, which the little Arthur was not
enabled to perceive. In particular he saw four heads inclosed
in an obelisk, which he perceived to represent the two magicians
and their wives, and interpreted to signify that unlimited com*
munion in which they were destined to engage. The matter,
however, being still an occasion of scruple, a spirit appeared,
who by the language he used was plainly no other than the

236 LIVES OF THE NECkOMANCEkS.

Saviour of the world, and took away from them the larger stone \
for now it appears there were two stones. This miracle at
length induced all parties to submit ; and the divine command
was no sooner obeyed, than the stone which had been abstracted
was found again under the pillow of the wife of Dee.

It is not easy to imagine a state of greater degradation than
that into which this person had now fallen. During all the prime
and vigour of his intellect, he had sustained- an eminent part
among the learned and the great, distinguished and honoured by
Elizabeth and her favourite. But his unbounded arrogance and
self-opinion could never be satisfied, and, seduced partly by
his own weakness, and partly by the insinuations of a crafty ad-
venturer, he became a mystic of the most dishonourable sort.
He was induced to believe in a series of miraculous communi-
cations without common sense, engaged in the pursuit of the
philosopher's stone, and no doubt imagined that he was pos-
sessed of the great secret. Stirred up by these conceptions, he
left his native country, and became a wanderer, preying upon
the credulity of one prince and eminent man after another, and
no sooner was he discarded by one victim of credulity, than he
sought another, a vagabond on the earth, reduced from time to
time to the greatest distress, persecuted, dishonoured and de-
spised by every party in their turn. At length by incessant de-
grees he became dead to all moral distinctions, and all sense of
honour and self-respect. " Professing himself to be wise he
became a fool, walked in the vanity of his imagination,*' and
had his understanding under total eclipse. The immoral system
of conduct in which he engaged, and the strange and shocking
blasphemy that he mixed with it, render him at this time a sort
of character that it is painful to contemplate.

Led on as Dee at this time was by the ascendancy and con-
summate art of Kelly, there was far from existing any genuine
harmony between them ; and, after many squabbles and heart-
burnings, they appear finally to have parted in January, 1589,
Dee having, according to his own account, at that time delivered
up to Kelly the elixir and the different implements by which the
transmutation of metals was to be effected.

Various overtures appear to have passed now for some years

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 237

between Dee and Queen Elizabeth, intended to lead to his
restoration to his native country. Dee had upon different occa-
sions expressed a wish to that effect ; and Elizabeth in the spring
of 1589 sent him a message that removed from him all further-
thought of hesitation and delay. He set out from Trebona with
three coaches, and a baggage train correspondent, and had an
audience of the queen at Richmond towards the close of that
year. Upon the whole it is impossible perhaps not to believe
that Elizabeth was influenced in this proceeding by the various
reports that had reached her of his extraordinary success with the
philosopher's stone, and the boundless wealth he had it in his
power to bestow. Many princes at this time contended with
each other, as to who should be happy enough by fair means or
by force to have under his control the fortunate possessor of the
great secret, and thus to have in his possession the means of in-
exhaustible wealth. Shortly after this time the Emperor Rodolph
seized and committed to prison Kelly, the partner of Dee in this
inestimable faculty, and, having once enlarged him, placed him in
custody a second time. Meanwhile Elizabeth is said to have
made him pressing overtures of so flattering a nature that he
determined to escape and return to his native country. For this
purpose he is said to have torn the sheets of his bed, and twisted
them into a rop^ that by that means he might descend from the
tower in which he was confined. But, being a corpulent man, of
considerable weight, the rope broke with him before he was half
way down, and having fractured one or both his legs, and being
otherwise considerably bruised, he died shortly afterwards. This
happened in the year 1595.

Dee (according to his own account, delivered to commissioners
appointed by Queen Elizabeth to inquire into his circumstances)
came from Trebona to England in a state little inferior to that
of an ambassador. He had three coaches, with four horses
harnessed to each coach, two or three loaded waggons, and a
guard, sometimes of six, and sometimes of twenty-four soldiers,
to defend him from enemies who were supposed to lie in wait to
intercept his passage. Immediately on his arrival he had an
audience of the queen at Richmond, by whom he was most
graciously received. She gave special orders that he should do

038 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCEfiS,

what he would in chemistry and philosophy, and that tto one
should on any account molest him.

But here end the prosperity and greatness of this extraordinary
man. If he possessed the power of turning all baser metals into
gold, he certainly acted unadvisedly in surrendering this power
to his confederate, immediately before his return to his native
country. He parted at the same time with his gift of prophecy,
since, though he brought away with him his miraculous stone,
and at one time appointed one Bartholomew, and another one
Hickman, his interpreters to look into the stone, to see the mar-
vellous sights it was expected to disclose, and to hear the voices
and report the words that issued from it, the experiments proved
in both instances abortive. They wanted the finer sense, or the
unpardleled effrontery and inexhaustible invention, which Kelly
alone possessed.

The remainder of the voyage of the life of Dee was ^ bound
in shallows, and in miseries." Queen Elizabeth, we may suppose,
soon found that her dreams of immense wealth to be obtjtined
through his intervention were nugatory. Yet would she not
desert the favourite of her former years. He presently began
to complain of poverty and difficulties. He represented that the
revenue of two livings he held in the church had been withheld
from him from the time of his going abroad. • He stated that,
shortly after that period, his house had been broken into and
spoiled by a lawless mob, instigated by his ill-fame as a dealer
in prohibited and unlawful arts. They destroyed or dispersed
his library, consisting of four thousand volumes, seven hundred
of which were manuscripts, and of inestimable rarity. They
ravaged his collection of curious implements and machines. He
enumerated the expenses of his journey home by Elizabeth's
command, for which he seemed to consider the queen as his
debtor. Elizabeth in consequence ordered him at several times
two or three small sums. But this being insufficient, she was
prevailed upon in 1592 to appoint two members of her privy
council to repair to his house at Mortlake to inquire into par-
ticulars, to whom he made a compendious rehearsal of half a
hundred years of his life, accompanied with documents and
vouchers.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 239

It is remarkable that in this rehearsal no mention occurs of the
miraculous stone brought down to him by an angel, or of his
pretensions respecting the transmutation of metals. He merely
rests his claims to public support upon his literary labours, and
the acknowledged eminence of his intellectual faculties. He
passes over the years he had lately spent in foreign countries in
entire silence, unless we except his account of the particulars of
his journey home. His representation to Elizabeth not being
immediately productive of all the effects he expected, he wrote a
letter to Archbishop Whitgift two years after, lamenting the delay
of the expected relief, and complaining of the " untrue reports, •
opinions and fables, which had for so nteny years been spread of
his studies.'* He represents these studies purely as literary,
frank, and wholly divested of mystery. If the " True Relation
of what passed for many years between Dr, Dee and certain
Spirits" had not been preserved, and afterwards printed, we might
have been disposed to consider all that was said on this subject
as a calumny.

The promotion which Dee had set his heart on was to the
office of master of St. Cross's Hospital near Winchester, which
the queen had promised him when the present holder should be
made a bishop. But this never happened. He obtained, how-
ever, in lieu of it, the chancellorship of St. Paul's Cathedral,
8 December, 159^^, which in the following year he exchanged for
the wardenship of the college at Manchester. In this last office
he continued till the year i6o2(according to other accoimts 1604^,
during which time he complained of great dissensions and re-
fractoriness on the part of the fellows ; though it may perhaps
be doubted whether equal blame may not fairly be imputed to
the arrogance and restlessness of the warden. At lenglii he re-
ceded altogether from public life, and retired to his ancient
domicile at Mortlake. He made one attempt to propitiate the
favour of King James ; but it was ineffectual. Elizabeth had
known him in the flower and vigour of his days ; he had boasted
the uniform patronageof her chief favourite ; he had been recog-
nised by the philosophical and the learned as inferior to none of
their body ; and he had finally excited the regard of his ancient
mistress by his pretence to revelations^ and the promises he held

240 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

out of the philosopher's stone. She could not shake off her in-
grafted prejudice in his favour ; she could not find in her heart
to cast him aside in his old age and decay. But then came a
king to whom in his prosperity and sunshine he had been a
stranger. He wasted his latter days in dotage, obscurity and
universal neglect. No one has told us how he contrived to sub-
sist. We may be sure that his constant companions were morti-
fication and the most humiliating privations. He lingered on
till the year 1608 ; and the ancient people in the time of Antony
Wood, nearly a century afterwards, pointed to his grave in the
chancel of the church at Mortlake, and professed to know the
very spot where his remains were deposited.

The history of Dee is exceedingly interesting, not only on its
own account ; not only for the eminence of his talents and attain-
ments, and the incredible sottishness and blindness of under-
standing which marked his maturer years ; but as strikingly
illustrative of the credulity and superstitious faith of the time in
which he lived. At a later period his miraculous stone which
displayed such wonders, and was attended with so long a series
of supernatural vocal conmiunications would have deceived
nobody : it was scarcely more ingenious than the idle tricks of
the most ordinary conjuror. But at this period the crust of long
ages of darkness had not yet been fully worn away. Men did
not trust to the powers of human understanding, and were not
familiarised with the main canons of evidence and behef. Dee
passed six years on the continent, proceeding from the court of
one prince or potent nobleman to another, listened to for a time
by each, each regarding his oracular communications with aston-
ishment and alarm, and at length irresolutely casting him off,
when he found little or no difficulty in running a like career with
another.

It is not the least curious circumstance respecting the life of
Dee, that in 1659, half-a-century after his death, there remained
still such an interest respecting practices of this sort, as to
authorise the printing a folio volume, in a complex and elaborate
form, of his communications with spirits. The book was brought
out by Dr. Meric Casaubon, no contemptible name in the republic
of letters. The editor observes respecting the hero and his

UVMS OF THM NMCJROMANCERS. 24t

achievements in the preface, that, " though his carriage in cer-
tain respects seemed to lay in works of darkness, yet all was
tendered by him to kings and princes, and by all (England alone
excepted) was listened to for a good while with good respect, and
by some for a long time embraced and entertained." He goes
Qrt to say, that " the fame of it made the pope bestir himself, and
filled all, both learned and unlearned, with great wonder and
astonishment." He adds, that, "as a whole, it is undoubtedly
not to be paralleled in its kind in any age or country." In a
Word; the editor, though disavowing an entire belief in Dee's pre^
tensions, yet plainly considers them with some degree of
deference, and insinuates to how much more regard siich undue
and exaggerated pretensions are entitled, than the impious in-
credulity of certain modern Sadducees, who say that " there is
no resurrection ; neither angel nor spirit.'* The belief in witch-
traft and sorcery has Undoubtedly met with sbme degree bf
favour from this consideration, inasmuch as, by recognising the
correspondence of human beings with the invisible world, it has
one principle in common with the believers in revelation, of which
the more daring infidel is destitute.

EARL OF DERBY.

The circumstances of the death of Ferdinand, fifth Earl of
Derby, in 1594, have particularly engaged the attention of the
contemporary historians. Hesket, an emissary of the Jesuits
and English Catholics abroad, was importunate with this noble-
man to press his title to the crown, as the legal representative
of his great-grandmother Mary, youngest daughter to King
Henry VII. But the earl, fearing, as it is said, that this was
only a trap to ensnare him, gave information against Hesket to
the government, in consequence of which he was apprehended^
tried and executed. Hesket had threatened the earl that, if he
did not comply with his suggestion, he should live only a short
time. Accordingly, four months afterwards, the earl was seized
with a very uncommon disease. A waxen image was at the same
time found in his chamber with hairs in its belly exactly of the
same colour as those of the earl.'' The image was, by somd

16

242 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

zealous friend of Lord Derby, burned ; but the earl grew worse.
He was himself thoroughly persuaded that he was bewitched.
Stow has inserted in his annals a minute account of his disease
from day to day, with a description of all the symptoms.

KING JAMES'S VOYAGE TO NOR WAV.

While Elizabeth amused herself with the supernatural gifts to
which Dee advanced his claim, and consoled the adversity and
destitution to which the old man, once so extensively honoured,
was now reduced, a scene of a very different complexion was
played in the northern part of the island. Trials for sorcery
were numerous in the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots ; the com-
parative darkness and ignorance of the sister kingdom rendered
it a soil still more favourable than England to the growth of
these gloomy superstitions. But the mind of James, at once in-
quisitive, pedantic and self-sufficient, peculiarly fitted him for the
pursuit of these narrow-minded and obscure speculations. One
combination of circumstances wrought up this propensity within
him to the greatest height.

James was born in the year 1556. He was the only direct heir
to the crown of Scotland ; and he was in near prospect of suc-
cession to that of England. The zeal of the Protestant Refor-
mation had wrought up the anxiety of men's minds to a fever of
anticipation and forecast. Consequently, towards the end of the
reign of Elizabeth, a point which greatly arrested the general
attention was the expected marriage of the King of Scotland.
Elizabeth, with that petty jealousy which obscured the otherwise
noble qualities of her spirit, sought to countermine this marriage,
that her rival and expected successor might not be additionally
graced with the honours of offspring. James fixed his mind
upon a daughter of the King of Denmark. By the successful
cabals of Elizabeth he was baffled in this suit ; and the lady was
finally married to the Duke of Bavaria. The King of Denmark
had another daughter ; and James made proposals to this prin-
cess. Still he was counteracted ; till at length he sent a splendid

^ Camden, annc 1693, 1694.

; LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS^ 243

embassy, with ample powers and instructions, and the treaty was
concluded. The princess embarked ; but, when she had now
for some time been expected in Scotland, news was brought in-
steady that she had been driven back by tempests on the coast of
Norway. The young- king felt keenly his disappointment, and
gallantly resolved to sail in person for the port, where his in-
tended consort was detained by the shattered condition of her
fleet. James arrived on the twenty-second of October, 1589, and
having consummated his marriage, was induced by the invita-
tion of his father-in-law to pass the winter at Cophenhagen, from
whence he did not sail till the spring, and, after having en-
countered a variety of contrary winds and some danger, reached
Edinburgh on the first of May jn the following year.

It was to be expected that variable weather and storms should
characterise the winter-season in these seas. But the storms
were of longer continuance, and of more frequent succession,
than was usually known. And at this period, when the proposed
consort of James I., then the king himself, and finally both of
them, and the hope of Protestant succession, were committed to
the mercy of the waves, it is not wonderful that the process of
the seasons should be accurately marked, and that those varieties,
which are commonly ascribed to second causes, should have been
imputed to extraordinary and supernatural interference. It was
affirmed that, in the king's return from Denmark, his ship was
impelled by a different wind from that which acted on the rest
of his fleet.

i- It happened that, soon after James's return to Scotland, one
Geilli§ Duncan, a servant-maid, for the extraordinary circum-
stances that attended certain cures which she performed, became
suspected of witchcraft. Her master questioned her on the sub-
ject ; but she would own nothing. Perceiving her obstinacy,
the master took upon himself of his own authority to extort
confession from her by torture. In this he succeeded ; and,
having related divers particulars of witchcraft of herself, she
proceeded to accuse others. The persons she accused were cast
into the public prison.

One of these, Agnes Sampson by name, at first stoutly resisted
the torture. But, it being more strenuously applied, she by^and-

16—2

244 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

by became extremely communicative. It was at this period ttat
James personally engaged in the examinations. We are told that
he " took great delight in being present," and putting the proper
questions. The unhappy victim was introduced into a room
plentifully furnished with implements of torture, while the king
waited in an apartment at a convenient distance, till the patient
was found to be in a suitable frame of mind to make the desired
communications. No sooner did he or she signify that they
were ready, and should no longer refuse to answer, than they
were introduced, fainting, sinking under recent sufferings which
they had no longer strength to resist, into the royal presence.
And here sat James, in envied ease and conscious " delight,*'
wrapped up in the thought of his own sagacity, framing the in-
quiries that might best extort the desired evidence, and calcu-
lating with a judgment by no means to be despised, from the
bearing, the turn of features, and the complexion of the victim,
the probability whether he was making a frank and artless con-
fession, or had still the secret desire to impose on the royal
examiner, or from a different motive was disposed to make use
of the treacherous authority which the situation afforded, to gratify
his revenge upon some person towards whom he might be inspired
with latent hatred and malice.

Agnes Sampson related with what solicitude she had sought
to possess some fragment of the linen bdoiiging to the king; If
he had worn it, and it had contracted any soil from his royal
person, this would be enough : she would infallibly, by applying
her incantations to this fragment, have been able to undermine
the life of the sovereign. She told how she with two hundred
other witches had sailed in sieves from Leith to North Berwick
Church, how they had there encountered the devil in person, how
they had feasted with him, and what obscenities had been prac-
tised. She related that in this voyage they had drowned a cat,
having first baptised him, and that immediately a dreadful storm
had arisen, and in this very storm the king's ship had been sepa-
rated from the rest of his fleet. She took James aside, and, the
better to convince him, undertook to repeat to him the conversa-
tion, the dialogue which had passed from the one to the other,

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, J?4S

between the king and queen in their bedchamber on the wedding-
night. Agnes Sampson was condemned to the flames.

JOHN FIAN '

Another of the miserable victims on this occasion was John
Fian, a schoolmaster at Tranent near Edinburgh, a young man,
whom the ignorant populace had decorated with the style of
doctor. He was tortured by means of a rope strongly twisted
about his head, and by the boots, He was at length brought to
confession. He told of a young girl, the sister of one qf his
scholars, with whom he had been deeply enamoured. He had
proposed to the boy to bring him three hairs from the most secret
part of his sister's body, possessing which he should be enabled
by certain incantations to procure himself the love of the girl.
The boy at his mother's instigation brought to Fian three hairs
from a virgin heifer instead ; and, applying his conjuration to
them, the consequence had been that the heifer forced her way
into his school, leaped upon him in amorous fashion, and would
not be restrained from following him about the neighbourhood.

This same Fian acted an important part in the scene at North
Berwick Church. As being best fitted for the office, he was ap-
pointed recorder or clerk to the devil, to write down the names,
and administer the oaths to the witches. He was actively con-
cerned in the enchantment by means of which the king's ship
had nparly been lost on his return from Denmark. This part of
his proceeding, however, does not appear in his own confession
but in that of the witches who were his fellow-conspirators.

He further said, that, the night after he made his confession,
the devil appeared to him, and was in a furious rage against him
for his disloyalty to his service, telling him that he should
severely repent his infidelity. According to his own account, he
stood firm, and defied the devil to do his worst. Meanwhile the
next night he escaped out of prison, and was with some difficulty
retaken. He, however, finally denied all his former confessions,
said that they were falsehoods forced from him by mere dint of
torture, and, though he was now once more subjected to the same
treatment to such an excess as must necessarily have crippled
him of his linibs for ever, he proved inflexible to the last. At

246 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

length by the king's order he was strangled, and his body cast
into the flames. Multitudes of unhappy men and women perished
in this cruel persecution.^

KING JAMES'S DEMONOLOGY,

It was by a train of observations and experiences like this,
that James was prompted seven years after to compose and
publish his "Dialogues on Demonology, in Three Books." In the
Preface to this book he says, ** The fearfull abounding at this
time in this countrey, of these detestable slaves of the DiueJ,
the Witches or enchaunters, hath moved me (beloued Reader) to
dispatch in post this following Treatise of mine, not in any wise
(as I protest) to serue for a shew of my learning and ingine, but
onely (moued of conscience) to preasse thereby, so farre as I can,
to resolue the doubting hearts of many, both that such assaults
of Satan are most certainely practised, and that the instruments
thereof merits most seuerely to be punished."

In the course of the treatise he affirms, " that barnes, or
wiues, or neuer so dififamed persons, may serue for sufficient
witnesses and proofes in such trialls ; for who but Witches can
be prooves, and so witnesses of the doings of Witches ?"« But,
lest innocent persons should be accused, and suffer falsely, he
tells us, " There are two other good helps that may be used for
their trial: the one is, the finding of their marke[a mark that
the devil was supposed to impress upon some part of their per-
sons], and the trying the insensibleness thereof : the other is
their fleeting on the water: for, as in a secret murther, if the dead
carkasse be at any time thereafter handled by the murtherer, it
will gush out of bloud, as if the bloud were crying to the heauen
for revenge of the murtherer, God hauing appointed that secret
supernaturall signe, for triall of that secret unnaturall crime, so
it appears that God hath appointed (for a supernaturall signe of
the monstrous impietie of Witches) that the water shall refuse to
receiue them in her bosome, that haue shaken off them the
sacred water of Baptisme, and wilfully refused the benefite

' Pitcairn, "Trials in Scotland, in Five Volumes," 4to.
2 King James's Works, p. 135.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 247

thereof : No, not so much as their eyes are able to shed teares
(threaten and torture them as ye please) while first they repent
(God not permitting -them to dissemble their obstinacie in sq
horrible a crime)."*

STATUTE, I JAMES /.

In consequence of the strong conviction James entertained
on the subject, the English parliament was induced, in the first
year of his reign, to supersede the milder proceedings of Eliza-
beth, and to enact that " if any person shall use, practise, or
exercise any invocation or conjuration of any evil and wicked
spirit, or shall consult, covenant with, entertain, employ, feed or
reward any evil and wicked spirit, to or for any intent and pur-
pose ; or take up any dead man, woman, or child out of their
grave, or the skin, bone, or siny part of any dead person, to be
used in any manner of witchcraft, sorcery or enchantment, or
shall use any witchcraft, sorcery or enchantment, whereby any
person shall be killed, destroyed, wasted, consumed, pined or
lamed in his or her body, or any part thereof ; that then ever
such offender, their aiders, abettors, and counsellors shall suffer
the pains of death." And upon this statute great numbers were
condemned and executed.

FORMAN AND OTHERS.

There is a story of necromancy which unfortunately make^
too prominent a figure in the history of the court and characte|:
of King James I. Robert, Earl of Essex, son of Queen Eliza?
beth's favourite, and who afterwards became commander in chief
of the parliamentary forces in the civil wars, married Lady
Frances Howard, a younger daughter of the Earl of Suffolk,
the bride and bridegroom being the one thirteen, the other four-
teen years old at the time of the marriage. The relatives of the
countess, however, who had brought about the match, thought it
most decorous to separate them for some time, and, while she
remained at home with her friends, the bridegroom travelled for
tjiree or four years on the continent. The lady proved th^

' King James's Works, p» 135, 136.

048 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

greatest beauty of her time, but along with this had the mos^
fibertine and unprincipled dispositions;.

The very circumstance that she had vowed her faith at the altar
when she was not properly capable of choice inspired into the
wayward mind of the dountess a repugnance to her husband.
He came from the continent, replete with accomplishments, and
we may conclude, from the figure he afterwards made in the
most perilous times, not without a competent share of intellec-
tual abilities. But the countess shrank from all advances on his
part. He loved retirement, and wooed the lady to scenes most
favourable to the development of the affections: she had been
bred in court, and was melancholy and repined in any other
scene. So capricious was her temper, that she is said at the
same time to have repelled the overtures of the accomplished
and popular Prince Henry, the heir to the throne.

It happened about this period that a beautiful young man,
twenty years of age, and full of all martial graces, appeared on
the stage. King James was singularly partial to young men who
were distinguished for personal attractions. By an extraordinary
accident this person, Robert Carr by name, in the midst of a
court-spectacle, just when it was his cue to present a buckler with
a device to the king, was thrown from his horse, and broke his
leg. This was enough: James naturally became interested in
the misfortune, attached himself to Carr, and even favoured him
again and again with a royal visit during his cure. Presently
the young man became an exclusive favourite ; and no honours
and graces could be obtained of the sovereign but by his inter-
ference.

This circumstance fixed the wavering mind of the Countess of
Essex. Voluptuous and self-willed in her disposition, she would
hear of no one but Carr. But her opportunities of seeing him
were both short and rare. In this emergency she applied to
Mrs. Turner, a woman whose profession it was to study and to
accommodate the fancies of such persons as the countess. Mrs»
Turner introduced her to Dr. Forman, a noted astrologer and
magician, and he, by images made of wax, and various uncouth
figures and devices, undertook to procure the love of Carr to the
lady. At the same time he practised against the earl, that h^

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 249

might become impotent, at least towards his >yife. This, how-
ever, did not satisfy the lady; and having gone the utmost lengths
towards her inamorato, she insisted on a divorce in all the
forms, and a legal marriage with the youth she loved. Carr
appears originally tp havp had good dispositions; and, while that
was the case, had assiduously cultivated the friendship of Sir
Thomas Overbury, one of the most promising young courtiers
of the time. Sir Thomas earnestly sought to break off the in-
timacy of Carr with Lady Essex, and told him how utterly ruin-
ous to his reputation and prospects it would prove, if he married
hpr. But Cg-rr, instead of feeling how much obliged he was to
Overbury for this example of disinterested friendship, went im-
mediately and told the countess what the young man said.

From this time the destruction of Overbury was resolved on
between them. He was first committed to the Tower by an
arbitrary mandate of James for refusing an embassage to Russia,
n^xt sequestered from all visitors, and finally attacked with
poison, which, after several abortive attempts, was at length
brought to effect. Meanwhile a divorce was sued for by the
countess upon an allegation of impotence ; and another female
was said to have been substituted in her room, to be subjected to
the inspection of a jury of matrons in proof of her virginity. After
a lapse of two years the murder was brought to light, the inferior
criminals, Mrs. Turner and the rest, were convicted and executed,
and Carr, now Earl of Somerset, and his countess, found guilty,
but received the royal pardon.r— It is proper to add, in order to
give a just idea of the state of human credulity at this period, that
Forman, having died at the time that his services were deemed
most necessary, one Gresham first, and then a third astrologer
and enchanter, were brought forward to consummate the atro-
cious projects of the infamous countess. It is said that she and
her second husband were ultimately so thoroughly alienated from
each other, that they resided for years underlie same roof, with
the most careful precautions that they might not by any chance
come into each other's presence.*

' Truth brought to Light by Time. Wilson, History of James |.

350 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

LATEST IDEAS OF JAMES ON THE SUBJECT,

It is worthy of remark, however, that King James lived to alter
his mind extremely on the question of witchcraft. He was
active in his observations on the subject ; and we are told that
*' the frequency of forged possessions which were detected by
him wrought such an alteration in his judgment, that he, reced-
ing from what he had written in his early life, g^ew first diffident
of, and then flatly to deny, the working of witches and devils, as
but falsehoods and delusions.'

LANCASHIRE WITCHES,

A more melancholy tale does not occur in the annals of necro-
mancy than that of the Lancashire witches in 1612. The scene
of this story is in Pendlebury Forest, four or five miles from
Manchester, remarkable for its picturesque and gloomy situation.
Such places were not sought then, as now, that they might afford
food for the imagination, and gratify the refined taste of the
traveller. They were rather shunned as infamous for scenes of
depredation and murder, or as the consecrated haunts of diabo-
lical intercourse. Pendlebury had been long of ill-repute on this
latter account, when a country magistrate, Roger Nowel by name,
conceived about this time that he should do a public service by
rooting out a nest of witches who rendered the place a terror to
all the neighbouring vulgar. The first persons he seized on were
Elizabeth Demdike and Ann Chattox, the former of whom was
eighty years of age, and had for some years been blind, who
subsisted principally by begging, though she had a miserable

' Fuller, Church History of Britain, book x., p. 74. See also Osborne's
Works, essay 1., where the author says he " gave charge to his judges, to
be circumspect in condemning those committed by ignorant justices for
diabolical compacts. Nor had he concluded his advice in a narrower circle,
as I have heard, than the denial of any such operations, but out of reason of
state, and to gratify the church, which hath in no age thought fit to explode
out of the common people's minds an apprehension of witchcraft." The
author adds that he ' ' must confess James to have been the promptest man
living in his dexterity to discover an imposture," and subjoins a remarkable
story in confirmation of this assertion.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 251

hovel on the spot which she called her own. Ann Chattox was
of the same age, and had for some time been threatened with
the calamity of blindness. Demdike was held to be so hardened
a witch, that she had trained all her family to the mystery ;
namely, Elizabeth Device, her daughter, and James and Alison
Device, her grandchildren. In the accusation of Chattox was
also involved Ann Redferne, her daughter. These, together with
John Bulcock, and Jane his mother, Alice Nutter, Catherine
Hewit, and Isabel Roby, were successively apprehended by the
diligence of Nowel and one or two neighbouring magistrates,
and were all of them by some means induced, some to make
a more liberal, and others a more restricted confession of their
misdeeds in witchcraft, and were afterwards hurried away to
Lancaster Castle, fifty miles off, to prison. Their crimes were
said to have universally proceeded from malignity and resent*
ment; and it was reported to have repeatedly happened for
poor old Demdike to be led by night from her habitation into
the open air by some member of her family, when she was left
alone for an hour to curse her victim, and pursue her unholy in-
cantations, and was then sought, and brought again to her hovel
Her curses never failed to produce the desired effect.

These poor wretches had been but a short time in prison, when
information was given that a meeting of witches was held on
Good Friday, at Malkin's Tower, the habitation of Elizabeth De-
vice, to the number of twenty persons, to consult how by infernal
machinations to kill one Covel, an officer, to blow up Lancaster
Castle, and deliver the prisoners, and to kill another man of the
name of Lister. The last was effected. The other plans by some
means, we are not told how, were prevented.

The prisoners were kept in jail till the summer assizes ; and in
the mean time it fortunately happened that the poor blind Dem-
dike died in confinement, and was never brought up to trial

The other prisoners were severally indicted for killing by
witchcraft certain persons who were named, and were all found
guilty. The principal witnesses against Elizabeth Device were
James Device and Jennet Device, her grandchildren, the latter
only nine years of age. When this girl was put into the witness
box, the grandmother^ on seeing her, set up so dreadful a y

»SZ LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

intermixed with bitter curses, that the child declared th^t she
could not go on with her evidence, unless the prisoner was re-
moved. This was agreed to ; and both brother and sister swore
that they had been present when the devil came to their grand-
mother in the shape of a black dog, and asked her what she de-
sired. She said the death of John Robinson; when the dog
told her to make an image of Robinson in clay, and after crumble
it into dust, and as fast as the image perished, the life of the
victim should waste away, and in conclusion the man should die.
This evidence was received; and upon such testimony, and
testimony like this, ten persons were led to the gallows, on the
twentieth of August, Ann Chattox of eighty years of age among
the rest, the day after the trials, which lasted two days, were
finished. The judges who presided on these trials were Sir James
Altham and Sir Edward Bromley, barons of the exchequer.*

From the whole of this story it is fair to infer that these old
women had played at the game of commerce with the devil. It
had flattered their vanity, to make their simpler neighbours
afraid of them. To observe the symptoms of their rustic terror,
^ven of their hatred and detestation, had been gratifying to them.
They played the game so long, that in an imperfect degree they
deceived themselves. Human passions are always to a certain
degree infectious. Perceiving the hatred of their neighbours,
ibey began to think that they were worthy objects of detestation
and terror, that their imprecations had a real effect, and their
curses killed. The brown horrors of the forest were favourable
to visions ; and they sometimes almost believed that they met

the foe ofmankind in the night. — But when Elizabeth Device
actually saw her grandchild of nine years old placed in the
witness-box, with the intention of consigning her to a public and
an ignominious end, then the reveries of the imagination va-
nished, and she deeply felt the reality, that, where she had been
somewhat imposing on the child in devilish sport, she had been
whetting the dagger that was to take her own life, and digging
her own grave. It was, then, no wonder that she uttered a pre-
ternatural yell, and poured curses from the bottom of her heart,

I Discovery^of theiWitches, 1612, printed by order of the Court.

i/t^MS OF THE NECROMANCERS, 253

It must have been almost beyond hunian endurance, to hear the
cry of her despair, and to witness the curses and the agony in
which it vented itself.

Twenty-two years elapsed afterthis scene, when a wretched
man, of the name of Edmund Robinson, conceived on the same
spot the scheme of making himself a profitable speculation from
a similar source. He trained his son, eleven years of age, and
furnished him with the necessary instructions. Hfe taught him
to say that one day in the fields he had met with two dogs, which
he urged on to hunt a hare. They would not budge ; and he in
revenge tied them to a bush and whipped them, when suddenly
one of them was transformed into an old woman and the other
into a child, a witch and her imp. This story succeeded so well;
that the father soon aftet gave out that his son had an eye that
could distinguish a witch by sight, and took him round to the
neighbouring churches, where he placed him standing on a bench
after service, and bade him look round and siee what he cotlld
observe. The device, however clumsy, succeeded, and no less
than seventeen pbrsons were apprehended at the boy's selection,
and conducted to Lancaster Castle. These seventeen persons
Were tried at the assizes, and found guilty ; but the judge, whose
name has unfortunately been lost, unlike Sir James Altham and
Sir Edward Bromley, saw something in the case that excited his
suspicion, and, though the juries had not hesitated in any one
instance, respited the convicts, and sent up a report of the affair
to the government Twenty-two years on this occasion had not
elapsed in vain. Four of the prisoners were, by the judge's re-
commendation, sent for to the metropolis, and were examined
first by the king's physicians, and then by Charles the First in
person. The boy's story was strictly scrutinised. In fine he
confessed that it was all an imposture; and the whole seventeen
received the royal pardon.^

LADY DAVIES,

Eleanor Tuchet, daughter of George, Lord Audley, married
Sir John Davies, an eminent lawyer in the time of James the

X Histoiy of Wballey, by Thomas Dunham Whitaker, p. 215.

25 ^ LIVES OP THE NECROMASCERS,

First, and author of a poem of coBsiderable merit on the Im-
mortality of the SouL This lady was a person of no contemptible
talents ; but what she seems most to have valued herself upon
was her gift of prophecy ; and she accordii^ly printed a book of
Strange and Wonderful Predictions. She professed to receive
her prophecies from a spirit, who communicated to her audibly
things about to come to pass, though the voice could be heard
by no other person. Sir John Davies was nominated lord chief
justice of the king's bench in 1626. Before he was inducted into
the office, Lady Eleanor, sitting with him on Sunday at dinner,
suddenly burst into a passion of tears. Sir John asked her what
made her weep. To which she replied, " These are your funeral
tears.'' Sir John turned off the prediction with a merry answer.
But in a very few days he was seized with an apoplexy, of which
he presently died.'— She also predicted the death of the Duke of
Buckingham in the same year. For this assumption of the gift
of prophecy, she was cited before the high commission court and
examined in 1634.'

EDWARD FAIRFAX,

It is a painful task to record that Edward Fairfax, the harmo-
nious and elegant translator of Tasso, prosecuted six of his
neighbours at York assizes in the year 1622 for witchcraft on
his children. " The common facts of imps, fits, and the appari-
tion of the witches, were deposed against the prisoners." The
grand jury found the bill, and the accused were arraigned. But,
we are told, ** the judge, having a certificate of the sober beha-
viour of the prisoners, directed the jury so well as to induce them
to bring in a verdict of acquittal.3" The poet afterwards drew
up a bulky argument and narrative in vindication of his conduct.

DOCTOR LAMB,

Dr. Lamb was a noted sorcerer in the time of Charles L The
famovis Richard Baxter, in his "Certainty of the World of
Spirits,** printed in 1691, has recorded an appropriate instance of

« Wood, Athenoe Oxonienses, vol. ii., p. 507.
* Heylyn, Life of Laud.
» Hutcl»nson on Witchcraft.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, ^55

the miraculous performances of this man. Meeting two of his
acquaintance in the street, and they having intimated a desire to
witness some example of his skill, he invited them home with
him. He then conducted them into an inner room, when presently,
to their no small surprise, they saw a tree spring up in the middle
of the apartment. They had scarcely ceased wondering at this
phenomenon, when in a moment there appeared three diminutive
men, with little axes in their hands for the purpose of cutting
down this tree. The tree was felled ; and the doctor dismissed
his guests, fully satisfied of the solidity of his pretensions. That
very night however a tremendous hurricane arose, causing the
house of one of the guests to rock from side to side, with every
appearance that the building would come down, and bury him
and his wife in the ruins. The wifej in great terror, askedj *' Were
you not at Dr. Lamb's to day ?'* The husband confessed it was
true. " And did you not bring away something from his house ?''
The husband owned that, when the little men felled the tree, he
had been idle enough to pick up some of the chips, and put them
in his pocket. Nothing now remained to be done, but to produce
the chips, and get rid of them as fast as they could. This cere-
mony performed, the whirlwind immediately ceased, and the re-
mainder of the night became perfectly calm and serene.

Dr. Lamb at length became so odious by his reputation for
these infernal practices, that the populace rose upon him in 1640,
and tore him to pieces in the streets. — Nor did the effects of his
ill fame terminate here. Thirteen years after, a woman, who had
been his servant-maid, was apprehended on a charge of witchcraft,
was tried, and in expiation of her crime was executed at Tyburn.

URBAIN GRANDIER,

A few years previously to the catastrophe of Dr. Lamb, there
occurred a scene in France which it is eminently to the purpose
of this work to record. Urbain Grandier, a canon of the church,
and a popular preacher of the town of Loudun in the district of
Poitiers, was in the year 1634 brought to trial upon the accusa-
tion of magic. The first cause of his being thus called in ques-
tion was the envy of his rival preachers, whose fame was eclipsed
by his superior talents. The second cause was a libel falsely

SS6 LIVES OP THE NECROMANckuh.

imputed to him upon Cardinal Richelieu, who, with all his emi-
nent qualities, had the infirmity of being inexorable upon the
question of any personal attack that was made upon him. Gran-
dier, beside his eloquence, was distinguished for his courage and
resolution, for the gracefulness of his figure, and the extraordinary
attention he paid to the neatness of his dress and the decoration
of his person, which last circumstance brought upon him the im-
putation of being too much devoted to the service of the fair:

About this time certairi nuns of the convent of Ursulines at
Loudun were attacked with a disease which manifested itself by
very extraordinary symptoms, suggesting to many the idea that
they were possessed with devils. A rumour was immediately
spread that Grandier, urged by some offence he had conceived
against these nuns, was the author, by the skill he had in the arts
of sorcery, of these possessions. It unfortunately happened,
that the same capuchin friat who assured Cardinal Richelieu that
Grandier was the writer of the libel against him, also communi-
cated to him the story of the possessed nuns, and the suspicion
Which had fallen on the priest on their account. The cardinal
seized with avidity on this occasion of private vengeance, wrote
to a counsellor of state at Loudun, one of his creatures, to cause
a strict investigation to be made into the charge, and in such
terms as plainly implied that what he aimed at was the destruc-
tion of Grandier.

The trial took place in the month of August, 1634 ; and, accor-
ding to the authorised copy of the trial, Grandier was convicted
upon the evidence of Astaroth, a devil of the order of Seraphims,
and chief of the possessing devils, of Easas, of Celsus, of Acaos,
of Cedon, of Asmodeus of the order of thrones, of Alex, of Za-
bulon, of Naphthalim, of Cham, of Uriel, and of Achas of the
order of principalities, and sentenced to be burned alive. In
other words, he was convicted upon the evidence of twelve nuns,
who, being asked who they were, gave in these names, and pro-
fessed to be devils, that, compelled by the order of the court, de-
livered a constrained testimony. The sentence was accordingly
executed, and Grandier met his fate with heroic constancy. At
his death an enormous drone fly was seen buzzing about his
head ; and a monk, who was present at the execution, attested /

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 257

that, whereas the devils are accustomed to present themselves in
the article of death to tempt men to deny God their Saviour, this
was Beelzebub, which in Hebrew signifies the God of flies, come
to carry away to hell the soul of the victim.'

ASTROLOGY,

The supposed science of astrology is of a nature less tremen-
dous, and less appalling to the imagination, than the commerce
with devils and evil spirits, or the raising of the dead from the
peace of the tomb to effect certain magical operations, or to in-
struct the living as the events that are speedily to befal them.
Yet it is well worthy of attention in a work of this sort, if for no
other reason, because it has prevailed in almostr all nations and
ages of the world, and has been assiduously cultivated by men,
frequently of great talent, and who were otherwise distinguished
for the soundness of their reasoning powers, and for the steadi-
ness and perseverance of their application to the pursuits in
which they engaged.

The whole of the question was built upon the supposed neces-
sary connection of certain aspects and conjunctions or opposi-
tions of the stars and heavenly bodies, with the events of the
world and the characters and actions of men. The human mind
has ever confessed an anxiety to pry into the future, and to deal in
omens and prophetic suggestions, and, certain coincidences hav-
ing occurred however fortuitously, to deduce from them rules and
maxims upon which to build an anticipation of things to come.

Add to which, it is flattering to the pride of man, to suppose
all nature concerned with and interested in what is of importance
to ourselves. Of this we have an early example in the song of
Deborah in the Old Testament, where in a fit of pious fervour
and exaltation, the poet exclaims, " They fought from heaven ;
the stars in their courses fought against Sisera."^

The general belief in astrology had a memorable effect on the
history of the human mind. All men in the first instance have
an intuitive feehng of freedom in the acts they perform, and of

' Menagiana, torn. II., p. 252, et seqq. = Judges, v., 20.

17

258 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

consequence of praise or blame due to them in just proportion
to the integrity or baseness of the motives by which they are
actuated. This is in reality the most precious endowment of man.
Hence it comes that the good man feels a pride and self-com-
placency in acts of virtue, takes credit to himself for the inde-
pendence of his mind, and is conscious of the worth and honour
to which he feels that he has a rightful claim. But, if all our
acts are predetermined by something out of ourselves, if, how-
ever virtuous and honourable are our dispositions, we are over-
ruled by our stars, and compelled to the acts, which, left to our-
selves, we should most resolutely disapprove, our condition
becomes slavery, and we are left in a state the most abject and
hopeless. And, though our situation in this respect is merely
imaginary, it does not the less fail to have very pernicious results
to our characters. Men, so far as they are believers in astrology,
look to the stars, and not to themselves, for an account of what
they shall do, and resign themselves to the omnipotence of a fate
which they feel it in vain to resist. Of consequence, a belief in
astrology has the most unfavourable tendency as to the morality
of man ; and, were it not that the sense of the liberty of our ac»
tions is so strong that all the reasonings in the world cannot
subvert it, there would be a fatal close to all human dignity and
all human virtue.

WILLIAM LILLY,

One of the most striking examples of the ascendancy of astro-
logical faith is in the instance of William Lilly. This man has
fortunately left us a narrative of his own life ; and he comes suf-
ficiently near to our time to give us a feeling of reality in the
transactions in which he was engaged, and to bring the scenes
home to our business and bosoms.

Before he enters expressly upon the history of his life, he gives
us incidentally an anecdote which merits our attention, as tend-
ing strongly to illustrate the credulity of man at the periods of
which we treat.

Lilly was born in the year 1602. When certain circumstances
led his yet undetermined thoughts to the study of astrology as
his principal pursuit, he put himself in the year 1632 under the

UFBS OF THE NECROMANCERS, 259

tuition of one Evans, whom he describes as poor, ignorant,
drunken, presumptuous and knavish, but who had a character,
as the phrase was, for erecting a figure, predicting future events,
discovering secrets, restoring stolen goods, and even for raising
a spirit when he pleased. Sir Kenelm Digby was one of the
most promising characters of these times, extremely handsome
and graceful in his person, accomplished in all military exercises,
endowed with high intellectual powers, and indefatigably inqui-
sitive after knowledge. To render him the more remarkable, he
was the eldest son of Everard Digby, who was the most eminent
sufferer for the conspiracy of the Gunpowder Treason.

It was, as it seems, some time before Lilly became acquainted
with Evans, that Lord Both well and Sir Kenelm Digby came to
Evans at his lodgings in the Minories, for the express purpose of
desiring him to show them a spirit. Sir Kenelm was born in the
year 1603 ; he must have been therefore at this time a young
man, but sufficiently old to know what he sought, and to choose
the subjects of his enquiry with a certain discretion. Evans
consented to gratify the curiosity of his illustrious visitors. He
drew a circle, and placed himself and the two strangers within
the circle. He began his invocations. On a sudden, Evans
was taken away from the others, and found himself, he knew not
how, in Battersea Fields near the Thames. The next morning
a countryman discovered him asleep, and having awaked him, in
answer to his enquiries told him where he was. Evans in the
afternoon sent a messenger to his wife, to inform her of his safety,
and to calm the apprehensions she might reasonably entertain.
Just as the messenger arrived, Sir Kenelm Digby came to the
house, curious to enquire respecting the issue of the adventure of
yesterday. Lilly received this story from Evans ; and, having
asked him how such an event came to attend on the experiment,
was answered that, in practising the invocation, he had heed-
lessly omitted the necessary suffumigation, at which omission
the spirit had taken offence.

Lilly made some progress in astrology under Evans, and prac-
tised the art in minor matters with a certain success ; but his
ambition led him to aspire to the highest place in his profession.
He made an experiment to discover a hidden treasure in West-

17 — 2

26o LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

minster Abbey ; and, having obtained leave for that purpose from
the bishop of Lincohi, dean of Westminster, he resorted to the
spot with about thirty persons more, with divining rods. He
fixed on the place according to the rules, and began to dig ; but
he had not proceeded far before a furious storm came on, and he
judged it advisable to "dismiss the demons," and desist These
supernatural assistants, he says, had taken offence at the number
and levity of the persons present ; and, if he had not left off when
he did, he had no doubt that the storm would have grown more
and more violent, till the whole structure would have been laid
level with the ground.

He purchased himself a house to which to retire in 1636 at
Hersham near Walton on Thames, having, though originally
bred in the lowest obscurity, twice enriched himself in some
degree by marriage. He came to London with a view to practise
his favourite art in 1641 ; but, having received a secret monition
warning him that he was not yet sufficiently an adept, he retired
again into the country for two years, and did not finally com-
mence his career till 1644, when he published a " Prophetical
Almanack," which he continued to do till about the time of his
death. He then immediately began to rise into considerable
notice. Mrs. Lisle, the wife of one of the commissioners of the
great seal, took to him the urine of Whitlocke, one of the most
eminent lawyers of the time, to consult him respecting the health
of the party, when he informed the lady that the person would
recover from his present disease, but about a month after would
be very dangerously ill of a surfeit, which accordingly happened.
He was protected by the great Selden, who interested himself in
his favour ; and he tells us that Lenthal, speaker of the house of
commons, was at all times his friend. He further says of himself
that he was originally partial to King Charles and to monarchy :
but, when the parliament had apparently the upper hand, he had
the skill to play his cards accordingly, and secured his favour
with the ruling powers. Whitlocke, in his " Memorials of Affairs
in his Own Times," takes repeated notice of him, says that, meet-
ing him in the street in the spring of 1645, he enquired of Lilly
as to what was likely speedily to happen, who predicted to him
the battle of Naseby, and notes in 1648 that some of his prog-

LIVES OF THE NECkOMANCBRS, 261

nostications " fell out very strangely, particularly as to the king's
fall from his horse about this time." Lilly applied to Whitlocke
in favour of his rival, Wharton, the astrologer, and his prayer
was granted, and again in behalf of Oughtred, the celebrated
mathematician.

Lilly and Booker, a brother-astrologer, were sent for in great
form^ with a coach and four horses, to the head-quarters of Fair-
fax at Windsor, towards the end of the year I647, when they told
the General that they were " confident that God would go along
with him and his army, till the great work for which they were
ordained was perfected, which they hoped would be the con-
quering their and the parliament's enemies, and a quiet settle-
ment and firm peace over the whole nation .'' The two astrologers
Were sent for in the same state in the following year to the siege
of Colchester, which they predicted would soon fall into posses-
sion of the parliament.

Lilly in the meanwhile retained in secret his partiality to
Charles L Mrs. Whorwood, a lady who was fully in the king's
confidence, came to consult him, as to the place to which Charles
should retire when he escaped from Hampton Court. Lilly pre-
scribed accordingly ; but Ashburnham disconcerted all his mea-
sures, and the king made his inauspicious retreat to the Isle of
Wight. Afterwards he was consulted by the same lady, as to
the way in which Charles should proceed respecting the negoci-
ations with the parliamentary commissioners at Newport, when
Lilly advised that the king should sign all the propositions, and
come up immediately with the commissioners to London, in
which case Lilly did not doubt that the popular tide would turn
in his favour, and the royal cause prove triumphant. Finally, he
tells us that he furnished the saw and aquafortis, with which
the king had nearly removed the bars of the window of his prison
in Carisbrook Castle, and escaped. But Charles manifested the
same irresolution at the critical moment in this case, which had
before proved fatal to his success. In the year 1 649 Lilly received
a pension of one hundred pounds per annum from the Council
of State, ^Vhich, after having been paid him for two years, he de-
clined to accept any longer. In 1659 he received a present of a
gold chain and medal from Charles X., King of Sweden, in ac-

262 LiVkS OF THE NBCRt)MANCkkS.

knowledgment of the respectful mention he had made of that
monarch in his almanics.

Lilly lived to a considerable age, not having died till the year
1 68 1. In the year 1666 he was summoned before a committee
of the House of Commons, on the frivolous ground that, in his
" Monarchy or No Monarchy," published fifteen years before, he
had introduced sixteen plates, among which was one, the feighthj
representing persons digging graves, with coffins and other
emblems significative of tnortality, and, in the thirteenth, a city
in flames. He was asked whether these things referred to the
late plague and fire of London. Lilly replied in a msmner to in-
timate that they did ; but he ingenuously confessed that he had
not known in what year they would happen. He said that he
had given these emblematical representations without any com-
ment, that those who were competent might apprehend their
meaning, whilst the rest of the world remained in the ignorance
which was their appointed portion.

MA TTHE W HOPKINS,

Nothing can place the credulity of the English nation on the
subject of witchcraft about this time, in a more striking point of
view, than the history of Matthew Hopkins, who, in a pamphlet
published in 1647 in his own vindication, assumes to himself the
surname of the Witch-finder. He fell by accident, in his native
county of Suffolk, into contact with one or two reputed witches,
and, being a man of an observing turn and an ingenious inven-
tion, struck out for himself a trade, which brought him such mode-
rate returns as sufficed to maintain him, and at the same time
gratified his ambition by making him a terror to many, and the
object of admiration and gratitude to more, who felt themselves
indebted to him for ridding them of secret and intestine enemies,
against whom, as long as they proceeded in ways that left no
footsteps behind, they felt they had no possibility of guarding
themselves. Hopkins's career was something like that of Titus
Gates in the following reign, but apparently much safer for the
adventurer, since Gates armed against himself a very fgrmidable
party, while Hopkins seemed to assail a few only here and there,
who were poor, debilitated, impotent, and helpless.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 263

After two or three successful experiments, Hopkins engaged
in a regular tour of the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex,
and Huntingdon. He united to him two confederates, a man
named John Stern, and a woman whose name has not been
handed down to us. They visited every town in their route
that invited them, and secured to them the moderate remunera-
tion of twenty shillings and their expenses, leaving what was
more than this to the spontaneous gratitude of those who should
deem themselves indebted to the exertions of Hopkins and his
party. By this expedient they secured to themselves a favour-
able reception, and a set of credulous persons who would listen to
their dictates as so many oracles. Being three of them, they
were enabled to play the game into one another's hands, and
were sufficiently strong to overawe all timid and irresolute op-
position. In every town to which they came, they enquired for
reputed witches, and having taken them into custody, were secure
for the most part of a certain number of zealous abettors, who
took care that they should have a clear stage for their experi-
ments. They overawed their helpless victims with a certain air
of authority, as if they had received a commission from heaven
for the discovery of misdeeds. They assailed the poor creatures
with a multitude of questions constructed in the most artful
manner. They stripped them naked, in search for the devil's
marks in different parts of their bodies, which were ascertained
by running pins to the head into those parts, that, if they were
genuine marks, would prove themselves such by their insensi-
bility. They swam their victims in rivers and ponds, it being an
undoubted fact, that, if the persons accused were true witches,
the water, which was the symbol of admission into the Christian
Church, would not receive them into its bosom. If the persons
examined continued obstinate, they seated them in constrained
and uneasy attitudes, occasionally binding them with cords, and
compelling them to remain so without food or sleep for twenty-
four hours. They walked them up and down the room, two
taking them under each arm, till they dropped down with
fatigue. They carefully swept the room in which the experiment
was made, that they might keep away spiders and flies, which
were supposed to be devils or their imps in that disguise.

6^4 LIVES OF TUB NECkOMANCEk^.

The most plentiful inquisition of Hopkins and his confederates
was in the years 1644, 1645, and 1646. At length there were so
many persons committed to prison upon suspicion of witchcraft^
that the government was compelled to take in hand the affair.
The rural magistrates before whom Hopkins and his confederates
brought their victims, were obliged, willingly or unwillingly, to
commit them for trial. A commission was granted to the earl
of Warwick and others to hold a sessions of jail-deli very against
them for Essex at Chelmsford. Lord Warwick was at this time
the most popular nobleman in England. He was appointed by
the parliament lord high admiral during the civil war. He was
much courted by the independent clergy, was shrewd, pene-
trating, and active, and exhibited a singular mixture of pious de-
meanour with a vein of facetiousness and jocularity. With him
was sent Dr. Calamy, the most eminent divine of the period of
the Commonwealth, to see (says Baxter*) that no fraud was
committed, or wrong done to the parties accused. It may well
be doubted however whether the presence of this clergyman did
not operate unfavourably to the persons suspected. He preached
before the judges. It may readily be believed, considering the
temper of the times, that he insisted much upon the horrible
nature of the sin of witchcraft, which could expect no pardon,
either in this world or the world to come. He sat on the bench
with the judges, and participated in their deliberations. In the
result of this inquisition sixteen persons were hanged at Yar-
mouth in Norfolk, fifteen at Chelmsford, and sixty at various
places in the county of Suffolk.

Whitelocke, in his Memorials of English Affairs, under the
date of 1649, speaks of many witches being apprehended about
Newcastle, upon the information of a person whom he calls the
Witchfinder, who, as his experiments were nearly the same,
though he is not named, we may reasonably suppose to be Hop-
kins ; and in the following year about Boston in Lincolnshire.
In 1652 and 1653 the same author speaks of women in Scotland,
who were put to incredible torture to extort from them a con-
fession of what their adversaries imputed to them.

The fate of Hopkins was such as might be expected in similar

' Certainty of the World of Spirits.

LIVES 01^ THE NRCkOMANCRRS. 265

cases. The multitude are at first impressed with horror at the
monstrous charges that are advanced. They are seized, as by
contagion, with terror at the mischiefe which seem to impend
over them, and from which no innocence and no precaution ap-
pear to afford them sufficient protection. They hasten, as with
a unanimous effort, to avenge themselves upon these malignant
enemies, whom God and man alike combine to expel from
society. But, after a time, they begin to reflect, and to
apprehend that they have acted with too much precipitation,
that they have been led on with uncertain appearances. They
see one victim led to the gallows after another, without stint or
limitation. They see one dying with the most solemn as-
severations of innocence, and another confessing, apparently she
knows not what, what is put into her mouth by her relentless
persecutors. They see these victims, old, crazy, and impotent,
harassed beyond endurance by the ingenious cruelties that are
practised against them. They were first urged on by implacable
hostility and fury, to be satisfied with nothing but blood. But
humanity and remorse also have their turn. Dissatisfied with
themselves, they are glad to point their resentment against
another. The man that at first they hailed as a public bene-
factor, they presently come to regard with jealous eyes, and be-
gin to consider as a cunning impostor, dealing in cool blood
with the lives of his fellow-creatures for a paltry gain, and, still
more horrible, for the lure of a perishable and short-lived fame.
The multitude, we are told, after a few seasons, rose upon Hop-
kins, and resolved to subject him to one of his own criterions.
They dragged him to a pond, and threw him into the water for a
witch. It seems he floated on the surface, as a witch ought to
do. They then pursued him with hootings and revilings, and
drove him for ever into that obscurity and ignominy which he had
amply merited.

CROMWELL,
There is a story of Cromwell recorded by Echard, the his-
torian, which well deserves to be mentioned, as strikingly illus-
trative of the credulity which prevailed about this period. It
takes its date from the morning of the 3rd of September, 1651,

266 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.

when Cromwell gained the battle of Worcester against Charles
the Second, which he was accustomed to call by a name
sufficiently significant, his " crowning victory." It is told on the
authority of a Colonel Lindsey, who is said to have been an in*
timate friend of the general, and to have been commonly known
by that name, as being in reality the senior captain in Cromwell's
own regiment " On this memorable morning the general," it
seems, " took this officer with him to a woodside not far from the
army, and bade him alight, and follow him into that wood, and
to take particular notice of what he saw and heard. After
having alighted, and secured their horses, and walked some
little way into the wood, Lindsey began to turn pale, and to be
seized with horror from some unknown cause. Upon which
Cromwell asked him how he did, or how he felt himself. He
answered that he was in such a trembling and consternation,
that he had never felt the like in all the conflicts and battles he
had ever been engaged in : but whether it proceeded from the
gloominess of the place, or the temperature of his body, he knew
not *How now?* said Cromwell, *What, troubled with the
vapours? Come, forward, man.' They had not gone above
twenty yards further, before Lindsey on a sudden stood still, and
cried out, *By all that is good I am seized with such un-
accountable terror and astonishment, that it is impossible for me
to stir one step further.' Upon which Cromwell called him,
* Faint-hearted fool !' and bade him, ' stand there, and observe,
or be witness.' And then the general, advancing to some distance
from him, met a grave, elderly man with a roll of parchment in
his hand, who delivered it to Cromwell, and he eagerly perused it.
Lindsey, a little recovered from his fear, heard several loud
words between them : particularly Cromwell said, ' This is but
for seven years ; I was to have had it for one-and-twenty ; and
it must and shall be so.' The other told him positively, it could
not be for more than seven. Upon which Cromwell cried with
great fierceness, * It shall however be for fourteen years.' But
the other peremptorily declared, " It could not possibly be for
any longer time ; and, if he would not take it so, there were
others that would.' Upon which Cromwell at last took the
parchment : and, returning to Lindsey with great joy in his

Ltl^ES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 267

countenance, he cried, ' Now, Lindsey, the battle is our own ! I
long to be engaged/ Returning out of the wood, they rode to
the army, Cromwell with a resolution to engage as soon as pos-
sible, and the other with a design to leave the army as soon.
After the first charge, Lindsey deserted his post, and rode away
with all possible speed day and night, till he came into the
county of Norfolk, to the house of an intimate friend, one Mr.
Thoroughgood, minister of the parish of Grimstone. Cromwell,
as soon as he missed him, sent all ways after him, with a promise
of a great reward to any that should bring him alive or dead.
When Mr. Thoroughgood saw his friend Lindsey come into his
yard, his horse and himself much tired, in a sort of maze, he
said, ' How now. Colonel ? We hear there is likely to be a battle
shortly : what, fled from your colours ?' * A battle,' said the
other J yes there has been a battle, and I am sure the king is
beaten. But, if ever I strike a stroke for Cromwell again, may
I perish eternally ! For I am sure he has made a league with
the devil, and the devil will have him in due time.' Then,
desiring his protection from Cromwell's inquisitors, he went in,
and related to him the story in all its circumstances." It is
scarcely necessary to remind the reader, that Cromwell died on
that day seven years, September the 3rd, 1658.

Echard adds, to prove his impartiality as an historian, " How
far Lindsey is to be believed, and how far the story is to be ac-
counted incredible, is left to the reader's faith and judgment, and
not to any determination of our own."

DOROTHY MATBLEY.

I find a story dated about this period, which, though it does
not strictly belong to the subject of necromancy or dealings with
the devil, seems well to deserve to be inserted in this work. The
topic of which I treat is properly of human credulity ; and this
infirmity of our nature can scarcely be more forcibly illustrated
than in the following example. Is is recorded by the well-known
John Bunyan, in a fugitive tract of his, entitled the " Life and
Death of Mr. Badman," but which has since been inserted in
the works of the author in two volumes folio. In minuteness of
particularity and detail it may vie with almost any story which

fi68 LIVES OP THE NECROMANCEHS.

human industry has collected, and human simplicity has evef
placed upon record.

"There was," says my author, **2l poor woman, by name
Dorothy Mateley, who lived at a small village, called Ashover, in
the county of Derby. The way in which she earned her sub-
sistence, was by washing the rubbish that came from the lead*
mines in that neighbourhood through a sieve, which labour she
performed till the earth had passed the sieve, and what remained
was particles and small portions of genuine ore. This woman
was of exceedingly low and coarse habits, and was noted to be ^
profane swearer, curser, liar and thief ; and her usual way of as*
serting things was with an imprecation, as, * I would I might sink
into the earth, if it be not so,' or, * I would that God would makd
the earth open and swallow me up, if I tell an untruth.'

" Now it happened on the 23rd of March, 1660 [according td
our compiitation i66i], that she was washing ore on the top of ft
steep hill about a quarter of a mile from Ashover, when a lad who
was working on the spot missed twopence out of his pocket, and
immediately bethought himself of charging Dorothy, with the
theft. He had thrown off his breeches and was working in his
drawers. Dorothy, with much seeming indignation, denied the
charge, and added, as was usual with her, that she wished the
ground might open and swallow her up, if she had the boy's
money.

'* One George Hopkinson, a man of good report in Ashover,
happened to pass at no great distance at the time. He stood a
while to talk to the woman. There stood also near the tub a
little child, who was called to by her elder sister to come away.
Hopkinson, therefore, took the little girl by the hand to lead her
to her that called her. But he had not gone ten yards from
Dorothy when he heard her crying out for help, and turning back,
to his great astonishment he saw the woman with her tub and
her sieve twirling round and round, and sinking at the same
time in the earth. She sunk about three yards, and then stopped,
at the same time calling lustily for assistance. But at that very
moment a great stone fell upon her head, and broke her skull,
and the earth fell in and covered her. She was afterwards
digged up, and found about four yards under ground, and the

UVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 269

boy's two pennies were discovered on her person, but the tub
and the sieve had altogether disappeared."

WITCHES HANGED BY SIR MATTHEW HALE,

One of the most remarkable trials that occur in the history of
criminal jurisprudence, was that of Amy Duny and Rose Cullender
at Bury St. Edmund's in the year 1664. Not for the circum-
stances that occasioned it ; for they were of the coarsest and
must vulgar materials. The victims were two poor, solitary
women of the town of Lowestoft in Suffolk, who had by temper
and demeanour rendered themselves particularly obnoxious to
their whole neighbourhood. Whenever they were offended with
any one, and this frequently happened, they vented their wrath
in curses and ill language, muttered between their teeth, and the
sense of which could scarcely be collected ; and ever and anon
they proceeded to utter dark predictions of evil which should
happen in revenge for the ill-treatment they received. The
fishermen would not sell them fish ; and the boys in the street
were taught to fly from them with horror, or to pursue them with
hootings and scurrilous abuse. The principal charges against
tliem were, that the children of two families were many times
seized with fits, in which they exclaimed that they saw Amy
Duny and Rose Cullender coming to torment them. They
• vomited, and in their vomit were often found pins, and once or
twice a two-penny nail. One or two of the children died ; fop
the accusations spread over a period of eight years, from 1656 to
the time of the trial. To back these allegations, a waggoner
appeared, whose waggon had been twice overturned in one morn-
ing, in consequence of the curses of one of the witches, the
waggon having first run against her hovel, and materially in-
jured it. Another time the waggon stuck fast in a gateway,
though the posts on neither side came in contact with the
wheels ; and, one of the posts being cut down, the waggon
passed easily along.

This trial, as I have said, was no way memorable for the cir-
cumstances that occasioned it, but for the importance of the
persons who were present, and had a share in the conduct of it.
The judge who presided was Sir Matthew Hale, then chief baror

270 LIVES OF Tim, NECROMANCERS.

of the exchequer, and who had before rendered himself remark-
able for his undaunted resistance to one of the arbitrary man-
dates of Cromwell, then in the height of his power, which was
addressed to Hale in his capacity of judge. Hale was also an
eminent author, who had treated upon the abstrusest subjects,
and was equally distinguished for his piety and inflexible in-
tegrity. Another person, who was present, and accidentally took
part in the proceedings, was Sir Thomas Browne, the superla-
tively eloquent and able author of the " Religio Medici." (He
likewise took a part on the side of superstition in the trial of the
Lancashire witches in 1634.) A judge also who assisted at the
trial was Keeling, who afterwards occupied the seat of chief
justice.

Sir Matthew Hale apparently paid deep attention to the trial,
and felt much perplexed by the evidence. Seeing Sir Thomas
Browne in courtf and knowing him for a man of extensive infor-
mation and vast powers of intellect. Hale appealed to him, some-
what extrajudicially, for his thoughts on what had transpired.
Sir Thomas gave it as his opinion that the children were be-
witched, and inforced his position by something that had lately
occurred in Denmark. Keeling dissented from this, and in-
clined to the belief that it might all be practice, and that there
was nothing supernatural in the affair.

The chief judge was cautious in his proceeding. He even
refused to sum up the evidence, lest he might unawares put a
gloss of his own upon any thing that had been sworn, but left it
all to the jury. He told them that the Scriptures left no doubt
that there was such a thing as witchcraft, and instructed them
that all they had to do was, first, to consider whether the children
were really bewitched, and secondly, whether the witchcraft was
sufficiently brought home to the prisoners at the bar. The jury
returned a verdict of guilty ; and the two women were hanged
on the seventeenth of March, 1664, one week after their trial.
They showed very little activity during the trial, and died pro-
testing their innocence.^

This trial is particularly memorable for the circumstances that

I Trial of the Witches executed at Bury St. Edmund's,

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 271

attended it. It has none of the rust of ages: no obscurity arises
from a long vista of years interposed between. Sir Matthew
Hale and Sir Thomas Browne are eminent authors ; and there
is something in such men, that in a manner renders them the
contemporaries of all times, the living acquaintance of succes-
sive ages of the world. Names generally stand on the page of
history as mere abstract idealities ; but in the case of these men
we are familiar with their tempers and prejudices, their virtues
and vices, their strength and their weakness.

They proceed, in the first place, upon the assumption that there
is such a thing as witchcraft, and therefore have nothing to do
but with the cogency or weakness of evidence as applied to this
particular case. Now what are the premises on which they pro-
ceed in this question ? They beUeve in a God, omniscient, all-
wise, all-powerful, and whose ** tender mercies are over all his
works." They believe in a devil, awful almost as God himself,
for he has power nearly unlimited, and a will to work all evil,
with subtlety, deep reach of thought, vigilant, *■ walking about,
seeking whom he may devour." This they believe, for they re-
fer to " the Scriptures, as confirming beyond doubt that there is
such a thing as witchcraft." Now what office do they assign to
the devil, " the prince of the power of the air,** at whose mighty
attributes, combined with his insatiable malignity, the wisest
of us might well stand aghast ? It is the first law of sound
sense and just judgment,

— — servetur ad imuntt

Qnalis ab incoepto processerit^ et sibi constet ;

that every character which we place on the scene of things should
demean himself as his beginning promises, and preserve a con-
sistency that, to a mind sufficiently sagacious, should almost
serve us in lieu of the gift of prophecy. And how is this devil
employed according to Sir Matthew Hale and Sir Thomas
Browne ? Why, in proffering himself as a willing tool of the
malice of two doting old women. In inflicting with fits, in
causing to vomit pins and nails, the children of the parents
who had treated the old women with barbarity and cruelty. In
judgment upon these two women sit two men, in some respects th

.272 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

most enlightened of an age that produced " Paradise Lost," and
in confirmation of this blessed creed two women are executed in
cool blood, in a country which had just achieved its liberties
under the guidance and the virtues of Hampden.

What right we have in any case to take away the life of a
human being already in our power, and under the forms of jus-
tice, is a problem, one of the hardest that can be proposed for
the wit of man to solve. But to see some of the wisest of men
sitting in judgment upon the lives of two human creatures in
consequence of the forgery and tricks of a set of malicious
children, as in this case undoubtedly it was, is beyond concep-
tion deplorable. Let us think for a moment of the inexpressible
evils which a man encounters when dragged from his peaceful
liome under a capital accusation, of his arraignment in open
ccourt, of the orderly course of the evidence, and of the sentence
;a warded against him, of the " damned minutes and days he
-counts over" from that time to his execution, of his being finally
brought forth before a multitude exasperated by his supposed
crimes, and his being cast out from off the earth as unworthy so
much as to exist among men, and all this being wholly innocent.
The consciousness of innocence a hundred fold embitters the
pang. And, if these poor women were too obtuse of soul en-
tirely to feel the pang, did that give their superiors a right to
overwhelm and to crush them ?

WITCHCRAFT IN SWEDEN

The story of witchcraft, as it is reported to have passed in
Sweden in the year 1670, and has many times been reprinted in
this country, is on several accounts one of the most interesting
and deplorable that has ever been recorded. The scene lies in
Dalecarlia, a country for ever memorable as having witnessed
some of the earliest adventures of Gustavus Vasa, his deepest
humiliation, and the first commencement of his prosperous for-
tune. The Dalecarlians are represented to us as the simplest,
the most faithful, and the bravest of the sons of men, men un-
debauched and unsuspicious, but who devoted themselves in the
most disinterested manner for a cause that appeared to them
worthy of support, the cause of liberty and independence against

LIVES OF THM NBCROMANCBRS. ^%

the crUelest of tyrants. At least such they were in 1520, one
hundred and fifty years before the date of the story we are going
to recount. — ^The site of these events was at Mohra and Elfdale
in the province that has just been mentioned.

The Dalecarlians, simple and ignorant, biit of exemplary in-
tegrity and honesty, who dwelt amidst impracticable mountains
and spacious mines of copper and iron, were distinguished for
superstition among the countries of the north, where all were
superstitious. They were probably subject at intervals to the
periodical visitation of alarms of witches, when whole races of
men became wild with the infection without any one's being well
able to account for it.

In the year 1670, and one or two preceding years, there wai a
great alarm of witches in the town of Mohra. There were
always two or three witches existing in some of the obscure
quarters of this place. But now they in creased Jn number, and
showed their faces with the utmost audacity. Their mode on
the piresent occasion was to make a journey through the air to
Blockula, an imaginary scene of retirement, which none but this
witches and their dupes had ever seen. Heri* they met with
feasts and various entertainments which it seems had particular
charms for the persons who partook of them. The witches used
to go into a field in the environs of Mohra, and cry aloud to the
devil in a peculiar sort of recitation, " Antecessor, come and
carry Us to Blockula !" Then appeared a multitude of strange
beasts, men, spits, posts, and goats with spits run through their
entrails and projecting behind that all might have rdoiji. The
witches tnounted these beasts of burthen or vehicles, and were
conveyed through the air, over high walls and mountains, and
through churches and chimneys, without perceptible impedi-
ment, till they arrived at the place of their destination. Here
the devil feasted them on various compounds and confections^
and, having eaten to their hearts' content, they danced, and then
fought. The devil made them ride on spits, from which they
were thrown ; and the devil beat them with the spits, and laughed
at them. He then caused them to build a house to protect them
against the day of judgment, and presently overturned the walls
of the house, and derided them again. All sorts of obscenities

18

*74 • LIVES OP THRl.NECROMANCERS.

were reported to follow upon these scenes. The devil begot on
the witches sons and daughters: this new generation intermarried
again, and the issue of this further conjunction appears to have
been toads and serpents. How all this pedigree proceeded in
the two or three years in which Blockulahad ever been heard of,
I know not that the witches were ever called on to explain.

But what was most of all to be deplored, the devil was not
content with seducing the witches to go and celebrate this in-
fernal sabbath ; he further insisted that they should bring the
children of Mohra along with them. At first he was satisfied if
each witch brought one ; but now he demanded that each witch
should bring six or seven for her quota. How the witches man-
aged with the minds of the children we are at a loss to guess.
These poor, harmless innocents, steeped to the very lips in ignor-
ance and superstition, were by some means kept in continual
alarm by the wicked, or, to speak more truly, the insane old
women, and said as their prompters said. It does not appear
that the children ever left their beds, at the time they reported
they had been to Blockula. Their parents watched them with
fearful anxiety. At a certain time of the night the children were
seized with a strange shuddering, their limbs were agitated, and
their skins covered with a profuse perspiration. When they
came to themselves, they related that they had been to Blockula,
and the strange things they had seen, similar to what had already
been described by the women. Three hundred children of
various ages are said to have been seized with this epidemic.

The whole town of Mohra became subject to the infection,
and were overcome with the deepest affliction. They con-
sulted together, and drew up a petition to the royal council at
Stockhohn, intreating that they would discover some remedy,
and that the government would interpose its authority to put an
end to a calamity to which otherwise they could find no limit.
The King of Sweden was at that time Charles XL, father of
Charles XH., and was only fourteen years of age. His council
in their wisdom deputed two commissioners to Mohra, and fur-
nished them with powers to examine witnesses, and to take what-
ever proceedings they might judge necessary to put an end to so
unspeakable a calamity.

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 275

They entered on the business of their commission on the
thirteenth of August, the ceremony having been begun with two
sermons in the great church of Mohra, in which we may be sure
the damnable sin of witchcraft was fully dilated on, and con-
cluding with prayers to Almighty God that in hi§ mercy he
would speedily bring to an end the tremendous misfortune with
which for their sins he had seen fit to afflict the poor people of
Mohra. The next day they opened their commission. Seventy
witches were brought before them. They were all at first sted-
fast in their denial, alleging that the charges were wantonly
brought against them, solely from malice and ill-will. But the
judges were earnest in pressing them, till at length first one, and
then another, burst into tears, and confessed all. Twenty-three
were prevailed on thus to disburthen their consciences ; but
nearly the whole, as well those who owned the justice of their
sentence as those who protested their innocence to the last, were
executed. Fifteen children confessed their guilt, and were also
executed. Thirty-six other children (who we may infer did not
confess), between the ages of nine and sixteen, were condemned
to run the gauntlet, and to be whipped on their hands at the
church-door every Sunday for a year together. Twenty others
were whipped on their hands for three Sundays.*

This is certainly a very deplorable scene, and is made the
more so by the previous character which history has impressed
on us, of the simplicity, integrity, and generous love of liberty of
the Dalecarlians. For the children and their parents we can
feel nothing but unmingled pity. The case of the witches is
different. That three hundred children should have been made
the victims of this imaginary witchcraft is doubtless a grievous
calamity. And that a number of women should have been found
so depraved and so barbarous, as by their incessant suggestions
to have practised on the minds of these children, so as to have
robbed them of sober sense, to have frightened them into fits
and disease, and made them believe the most odious impossi-
bilities, argued a most degenerate character, and well merited
severe reprobation, but not death. Add to which, many of these

' Narrative translated by Dr. Horneck, apud Satan's Invisible World by
SinoUir/aad'Sadducismus Triumphat^^ by Glanville.

18-3

B76 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

women may be believed innocent, otherwise a great majority of
those who were executed, would not have died protesting their
entire freedom from what was imputed to them. Some of the
parents, no doubt, from folly and ill-judgment, aided the alien-
ation of mipd in their children which they afterwards so deeply
deplored, and gratified their senseless aversion to the old women,
when they were themselves in many cases more the real authors
of the evil than those who suffered.

WITCHCRAFT IN NEW ENGLAND,

As a story of witchcraft, without any poetry in it, without any-
thing to amuse the imagination, or interest the fancy, but hard,
prosy, and accompanied by all that is wretched, pitiful and
withering, perhaps the well known story of the New England
witchcraft surpasses everything else upon record. The new
Englanders were at this time, towards the close of the seven-
teenth century, rigorous Calvinists, with long sermons and
tedious monotonous prayers, with hell before them for ever on
one side, and a tyrannical, sour and austere God on the other,
jealous of an arbitrary sovereignty, who hath " mercy on whom,
he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth." These
men, with long and melancholy faces, with a drawling and
sanctified tone, and a carriage that would ** at once make the
most severely disposed merry, and the most cheerful spectators
sad," constituted nearly the entire population of the province of
Massachusetts Bay.

The prosecutions for witchcraft continued with little inter-
mission, principally at Salem, during the greater part of the year
1692. The accusations were of the most vulgar and contemp-
tible sort, invisible pinchings and blows, fits, with the blastings
and mortality of cattle, and wains stuck fast in the ground, or
losing their wheels. A conspicuous feature in nearly the whole
of these stories was what they named the " spectral sight ;" in
other words, that the profligate accusers first feigned for the most
part the injuries they received, and next saw the figures and
action of the persons who inflicted them, when they were in-
visible to every one else. Hence the miserable prosecutors
gained the power of gratifying the wantonness of their malice,

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS, 277

by pretending that they suffered by the h^^nd of any one whosjs
name first presented itself, or against whom they bore an ill will.
The persons so charged, though unseen by any but the accuser,
^nd who in their corporal presence were at a distance of miles,
and were doubtless wholly unconscious of the mischief that was
hatching against them, were imn^ediately taken up and cast Into
prison. And what was more monstrous and incredible, there
stood at the bar the prisoner on trial for his life, while the wit-
nesses were permitted to swear that his spectre had haunted
them, and afflicted them with all njanner of injuries. That the
poor prosecuted wretch stood astonished at what was alleged
against him, was utterly overwhelmed with the charges, and
knew not what to answer, was all of it interpreted as so many
presumptions of his guilt. Ignorant as they were, they were un-
happy and unskilful in their defence ; and, if they spoke of the
devil, as was but natural, it was instantly caught at as a proof
how familiar they were with the fiend that had seduced them to
their damnation.

The first specimen of this sort of accusation in the present ini-
stance was given by one Paris, minister pf a church at Salem, in
the end of the year 1691, who had two daughters, one nine years
old, the other eleven, that were afflicted with fits and convulsions.
The first person fixed on as the mysterious author of what was
seen, was Tibuta, a female slave in the family, and she was
harassed by her master into a confession of unlawful practices
and spells. The girls then fixed on Sarah Good, a female known
to be the victim of a morbid melancholy, and Osborne, a poor
man that had for a considerable time been bed-rid, as persons
whose spectres had perpetually haunted and tormented them:
and Good was twelve months after hanged on this accusation.

A person who was one of the first to fall under the imputation,
was one George Burroughs, also a minister of Salem. He had,
it seems, buried two wives, both of whom the busy gossips said he
had used ill in their life-time, and consequently, it was whispered,
h^d murdered them. This man was accustomed fooUshly to
vaunt that he knew what people said of him in his absence; and
this was brought as a proof that he dealt with the devil. Two
women, who were witnesses against him, interrupted their testi-

978 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

mony with exclaiming that they saw the ghosts of the murdered
wives present (who had promised them they would come), though
no one else in the court saw them ; and this was taken in evi-
dence. Burroughs conducted himself in a very injudicious way on
his trial ; but, when he came to be hanged, made so impressive
a speech on the ladder, with fervent protestations of innocence,
as melted many of the spectators into tears.

The nature of accusations of this sort is ever found to operate
like an epidemic. Fits and convulsions are communicated from
one subject to another. The " spectral sight," as it was called,
is obviously a theme for the vanity of ignorance. " Love of
fame,'' as the poet teaches, is a " universal passion.*' Fame is
placed indeed on a height beyond the hope of ordinary mortals.
But in occasional instances it is brought unexpectedly within the
reach of persons of the coarsest mould ; and many times they
will be apt to seize it with proportionable avidity. When, too,
such things are talked of, when the devil and spirits of hell are
made famihar conversation, when stories of this sort are among
the daily news, and one person and another, who had a little
before nothing extraordinary about them, become subjects of
wonder, these topics enter into the thoughts of many, sleeping
and waking : " their young men see visions, and their old men
dream dreams."

In such a town as Salem, the second in point of importance in
the colony, such accusations spread with wonderful rapidity.
Many were seized with fits, exhibited frightful contortions of their
limbs and features, and became a fearful spectacle to the by-
stander. They were asked to assign the cause of all this ; and
they supposed, or pretended to suppose, some neighbour, already
solitary and afflicted, and on that account in ill odour with the
townspeople, scowling upon, threatening, and tormenting them.
Presently persons, specially gifted with the "spectral sight,"
formed a class by themselves, and were sent about at the public
expense from place to place, that they might see what no one
else could see. The prisons were filled with the persons accused.
The utmost terror was entertained, as of a calamity which in
such a degree had never visited that part of the world. It
happened, mpst unfortunately, that Baxter's Certainty of the

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 279

World of Spirits had been published but the year before, and a
number of copies had been sent out to New England. There
seemed a strange coincidence and sympathy between vital
Christianity in its most honourable sense, and the fear of the
devil, who appeared to be " come down unto them, with great
wrath/' Mr. Increase Mather, and Mr. Cotton Mather, his son,
two clergymen of the highest reputation in the neighbourhood,
by the solemnity and awe with which they treated the subject,
and the earnestness and zeal which they displayed, gave a sanc-
tion to the lowest superstition and virulence of the ignorant.

All the forms of justice were brought forward on this occasion.
There was no lack of judges, and grand juries, and petty juries,
and executioners, and still less of prosecutors and witnesses.
The first person that was hanged was on the tenth of June, five
more on the nineteenth of July, five on the nineteenth of August,
and eight on the twenty-second of September. Multitudes con-
fessed that they were witches \ for this appeared the only way
for the accused to save their lives. Husbands and children fell
down on their knees, and implored their wives and mothers to
own their guilt. Many were tortured by being tied neck and
heels together, till they confessed whatever was suggested to
them. It is remarkable, however, that not one persisted in her
confession at the place of execution.

The most interesting story that occurred in this affair was of
Giles Cory, and Martha, his wife. • The woman was tried on the
ninth of September, and hanged on the twenty-second. In the
interval, on the sixteenth, the husband was brought up for trial.
He said he was not guilty ; but, being asked how he would be
tried, he refused to go through the customary form, and say, " By
God and my country." He observed that, of all that had been
tried, not one had as yet been pronounced not guilty ; and he
resolutely refused in that mode to undergo a tri^ The judge
directed therefore that, according to the barbarous mode pre-
scribed in the mother-country, he should be laid on his back,
and pressed to death with weights gradually accumulated on the
upper surface of his body, a proceeding which had never yet been
resorted to by the English in North America. The man per-
sisted in his resolution, and remained mute till he expired.

a8o IJVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

The whole of this dreadful tragedy was kept together by a
thread. The spectre-seers for a considerable time prudently re-^
stricted their accusations to persons of ill repute, or otherwise of
no consequence in the community. By-and-bye, however, they
lost sight of this caution, and pretended they saw the figures of
some persons well connected, and of unquestioned honour and
reputation, engaged in acts of witchcraft. Immediately the whole
fell through in a moment. The leading inhabitants presently
saw how unsafe it would be to trust their reputations and their
lives to the mercy of these profligate accusers. Of fifty-six bills
of indictment that were offered to the grand jury on the third of
January, 1693, twenty-six only were found true bills, and thirty
thrown out. On the twenty-six bills that were found, three
persons only were pronounced guilty by the petty jury, and these
three received their pardon from the government. The prisons
were thrown open j fifty confessed witches, together with two
hundred persons imprisoned on suspicion, were set at liberty,
and no more accusations were heard of. The " afflicted," as they
were technically termed, recovered their health ; the " spectral
sight" was universally scouted ; and men began to wonder how
they could ever have been the victims of so horrible a delusion.'

CONCLUSION

The volume of records of supposed necromancy and witchcraft
is sufficiently copious, without its being in any way necessary to
trace it through its latest relics and fragments. Superstition is
so congenial to the mind of man, that, even in the early yp^s of
the author of the present volume, scarcely a village was unfur-
nished with an old man or woman who laboured under an ill
repute on this score ; and I doubt not many remain to this very
day, I remember, when a child, that I had an old woman
pointed out towme by an ignorant servant-maid, as being unques-
tionably possessed of the ominous gift of the " evil eye," and that
my impulse was to remove myself as quickly as might be from
the range of her observation.

But witchcraft, as it appears to me, is by no means so desir-

* Cotton Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World ; Calef, More Wonders
pf t^e Invisible World ; Neal, History of New England,

LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS. 281

able a subject as to make one unwilling to drop it It has its
uses. It is perhaps right that we should be somewhat acquainted
with this repulsive chapter in the annals of human nature. As
the wise man says in the Bible, " It is good for us to resort to the
house of those that mourn ;" for there is a melancholy which is
attended with beneficial effects, and "by the sadness of the
countenance the heart is made better." But I feel no propensity
to linger in these dreary abodes, and would rather make a speedy
exchange for the dwellings of healthfulness and a certain hilarity.
We will therefore, with the reader's permission, at length shut
the book, and say, " Lo, it is enough."

There is no time, perhaps, at which we can more fairly quit
the subject than when the more enlightened governments of
Europe have called for the code of their laws, and have obliter-
ated the statute which annexed the penalty of death to this
imaginary crime.

So early as the year 1672, Louis XIV. promulgated an order
of the Council of State, forbidding the tribunals from proceeding
to judgment in cases where the accusation was of sorcery only.*

In England we paid a much later tribute to the |)rogress of
illumination and knowledge ; and it was not till the year 1736
that a statute was passed, repealing the law made in the first year
of James I., and enacting that no capital prosecution should for
the future take place for conjuration, sorcery and enchantment,
but restricting the punishment of persons pretending to tell for-
tunes and discover stolen goods by witchcraft, to that appertain-^
ing to a misdemeanour,

As long as death could by law be awarded against those who
were charged with a commerce with evil spirits, and by their
means inflicting mischief on their species, it is a subject not un-
worthy of grave argument and true philanthropy, to endeavour
tp detect the fallacy of such pretences, and expose the incalcu-
lable evils and the dreadful* tragedies that have grown out of
accusations and prosecutions for such imaginary crimes. But
the effect of perpetuating the silly and superstitious tales that
have survived this mortal blow, is exactly opposite. It only

? Jvleuagiana, fom ii., p. 2^^ Voltaire, Siecle de Louis Xiy. chap. xxxj.

282 LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS,

serves to keep alive the lingering folly of imbecile minds, and
still to feed with pestiferous clouds the thoughts of the ignorant.
Let us rather hail with heart-felt gladness the light which has,
though late, broken in upon us, and weep over the calamity of
our forefathers, who, in addition to the inevitable ills of our sub-
lunary state, were harassed with imaginary terrors, and haunted
by suggestions,

Whose horrid image did unfix their hair,

And make their seated hearts knock at their ribs,

Against the use of nature.

THE END.

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OYGLOFiBDIA OP COSTUME ; or, A Dictionary of Dress—Regal,
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*• These numbers of a Cyclopaedia of Ancient and Modem Costume give promise
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formation as to costumes for fancy balls and character quadrilles. . . . Besmtifully
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** Those who know how useful is Fairholt's brief and necessarily imperfect glossary
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The remaining Parts will be occupied by the GENERAL HISTORY OF
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of the sumptuous efforts of the present ^zy.^'^Ettcyclopadia Britannica.

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DXTNRAVEN'S (Earl of) THE GREAT DIVIDE : A Narrative
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ARLT ENGLISH POETS. Edited, with Introductions and
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** Mr. Grosart has spent the most laborious and the most enthusiastic care on the
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scholarship. ''-^ Examiner.

1 . Fletcher's (GUea, B. D. ) Com-

flete Poems, Christ's Victorie in
leaven, Christ's Victorie on Earth,
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^finor Poems. With Memorial-
Introduction and Notes.

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Poetical Works, including Psalms
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em:anxtei. on diamonds and precious stones ;

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EMERSON.— LETTERS AND SOCIAL AIMS. By Ralph
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failed him in his old age ; and in these pages lieht is often flashed upon an obscure
or abstruse proposition from a pithy and pointed story. Without any pedantic show
of learning, every page bears witness to the author's wide, one might almost say
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ENGLISHMAN'S HOUSE (The) : A Practical Guide to all in.
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gAIBHOLT.— TOBACCO : Its History and Associations ; in*
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Edition, with Coloured Frontispiece and upwards of 100 Illustrations by
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'* A delightful reprint. ... A more complete and dainty book on a subject
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FARADAY'S CHEMICAL HISTORY OF A CANDLE.

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since the time of Sir Humphry Davy, was ever listened to with more delight.
The pleasure which all derived from the expositions of Faraday was of a somewhat
different kind from that produced by any other philosopher whose lectures we have
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him we had no chance of apologies for an unsuccessful experiment — no hanging fire
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a chemist loving his science, no matter how often he might himself have repeated an
experiment, to feel uninterested when seeing it done by Faraday." — W. Crookes.

FiaUIERS PRIMITIVE MAN : A Popular Manual of the pre-
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account of Man's creation, and does not admit that the authority of Holy Writ is in
any way questioned by those labours which aim at seeking the real ep6ch of Man's
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which tnirty are full-page engravings, confessedly somewhat fanciful in their com-
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FINGER-RING LORE: Historical, Legendary, and Anecdotal.

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GILLRAY, THE CARICATURIST : The Story of his Life ^nd
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GOSSS (Edmund W.)— KING ERIK: A Tragedy. With a

Vignette by W. B. Scott. Small 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s.

"The. author's book, *On Viol and Flute,' displayed such a remarkable car for
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direction. In this case there is happily no cause for such pity. We have seldom
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GREENWOOD'S (James) LOW.LIFE DEEPS : An Account of

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OROOC— QERMAN POPXTLAB STORIES. CoUected by the
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deciaon and severe drawing which would leave afterwards little -to be learnt in
schools." — Extract from Introduction by John Ruskin.

GUTOT'S EARTH AND MAN ; or, Physical Geography in its
Relation to the History of Mankind. With Additions by Professors Agassiz.
PiBRCB, and Gray. With 12 Maps and Engravings on Steel, some Coloured,
and a copious Index. A New Edition. Crown 8vo, doth extra, gilt, 4^. 6</.

JAKE'S (T. Gordon) NEW SYMBOLS: Poems. By the

Author of *' Parables and Tales." Crown 8vo, cloth extra, ts.

"The entire book breathes a pure and ennobling influence, shows
welortme originality of idea and illustration, and yields the highest proof
of imaginatve faculty and mature power of expression." — Atkenaum,

HALL'S (Mrs. S. C.) SKETCHES OF IRISH CHARACTER.
With numerous Illustrations on Steel and Wood, by Daniel Maclisb, Sir John
GiLBSRT, W. Harvey, and G. Cruikshank. 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, js. td,
"The Irish sketches of this lady resemble Miss Mitford's beautiful English

Sketches in ' Our Village,' but they are far more vigorous and picturesque and

hr^ht."—Biackwood's Ma^azifie.

HARRIS'S AXJRELIAN : A Natural History of English Moths and
Butterflies, and the Plants on which they feed. A New Edition. Edited, with
Additions, by J. O. Westwood. With about 400 exquisitely Coloured Figures of
Moths, Butterflies, Caterpillars, &c., and the Plants on which they feed. Small
folio, half-morocco extra, gilt edges, £3 x^s. 6d.

HAWKER (MEMORIALS OP THE LATE REV. ROBERT
STEPHEN), sometime Vicar of Morwenstow, in the Diocese of Exeter. Col-
lected, arranged, and edited by the Rev. Frederick George Lee, D.C.L.,
Vicar of All Saints', Lambeth. With Photographic Portrait, Pedigree, and Illus-
trations. Demy 8vo, cloth extra, 12s.
"Dr. Lee's 'Memorials* is a far better record of Mr. Hawker, and gives a more

reverent and more true idea of the man. . . . Dr. Lee rightly confines himself to

his proper subject." — Atkenaum,

HISTORICAL PORTRAITS ; Upwards of 430 Engravings of Rare
Prints. Comprising the Collections of Rood, Richardson, Caulfield, &c.
With Descriptive Text to every Plate, giving a brief outline of the most important
Historical and Biographical Facts and Dates connected with each Portrait, and
references to original Authorities. In Three Vols., royal 4to, half-morocco, full
gilt back and edges, price £7 js.

THE ORIGINAL HOGARTH.

HOQARTH'S WORKS. Engraved by Himself. 153 fine Plates,

with elaborate Letterpress Descriptions by John Nichols. Atlas folio, half-
morocco extra, gilt edges, £j 10s.

** I was pleased with the reply of a gentleman who, being asked which book he
esteemed most in his library, answered ' Shakespeare ' ; bemg asked which he es-
semcd next best, answered * Hogarth.'*'— Charles Lamb.

CHATTO dr* WINDUS, PICCADILLY. 15

HATDON'S (B. R.) CORBESPONDENOB ft TABLE-TALK.

With a Meinour by his Son, Frederic Wordsworth Hayi>on. Comprising a
large number of hitherto Unpublished Letters from Keats, Wilkie, Southby,
Wordsworth, Kirkup. Leigh Hunt, Landseek, Horace Smith, Sir G.
Beaumont, Goethe, Mrs. Siddons, Sir Walter Scott, Talpourd, J epprey.

WiuciE, Keats, and Maria Foote. Two Vols. 8vo, cloth extra, 36^.
^ *' As a defence of the painter's character and career the work before us will pos-
nbly meet Mrith as much criticism as approval ; but there can, we think, be no
question of its interest in a purely biographical sense, or of its literary merit. The
letters and table>talk form in themselves a most valuable contribution to the social
and artistic history of the time, and would be very welcome even without the
memoir which precedes them." — Pall Mall Gazette.

"The volumes are among the most interesting produced or likely to be produced
by the present season." — Examiner.

'* One of the most moving histories that has been published in modem days. . .
Haydon's case has never before been fairly laid before the public ; the man has
never been shown as he was in truth, through the medium of his correspondence, his
diaries, sayings and actions. . . . Charming correspondence, and still more
charming table-talk." — Morning' Post.

" Here we have a full-length portrait of a most remarkable man. . . . His
son has done the work well— is clear and discriminating on the whole, and writes
with ease and vigour. Over and above the interest that must be felt in Haydon
himself, the letters afford us the opportunity of studying closely many of the greatest
men and women of the time. . . . We do not hesitate to say that these letters
and table-talk forma most valuable contribution to the history of art and literature
in the pastgeneration. The editor has selected and arranged them with uncommon
judgment, adding many notes that contain ana and anecdotes. Every pa^e has
thus its point of mterest. The book will no doubt have a wide audience, as it well
deserves." — Nonconformist.

HOLBEIN'S PORTRAITS OP THE COURT OP HENRY
THE EIGHTH. A Series of 84 exquisitely beautiful Tinted Plates, engraved
by Bartolozzi, Cooper, and others, and printed on Unted Paper, in imitation
of the Original Drawings in the Royal Collection at Windsor. With Historical
Letterpress by Edmund Lodge, Norroy King of Arms. Imperial 4to, half-
morocco extra, gilt edges, £$ 15s. 6d,

** A very charming, costly, and captivating performance."— Dibdin.
HOLBEIN'S PORTRAITS OP THE COURT OP HENRY VTEI.
Chamberlaine's Imitations of the Original Drawings, mostly engraved by
Bartolozzi. London: printed by W. Bulmbr & Co., Shakespeare Printing
Office, 1792. 93 splendid Portraits (including 8 additional Plates), elaborately
tinted in Colours, with Descriptive and Biographical Notes, by Edmund Lodge,
Norroy King of Arms. Atlas folio, half-morocco, gilt edges, ^ao.
•*• The graceful and delicate colouring preserves all the effect of the original
highly-finished drawings^ and at the same time communicates an enchanting
animation to the features. Not more than ten of the subjects are included in
'* Lodges Portraits^** and still fewer are to be found in any other collection.

HOOD'S (Tom) PROM NOWHERE TO THE NORTH
POLE : A Noah's Arkajological Narrative. By Tom Hood. With 25 Illustra-
tions by W. Brunton and £. C. Barnes. Square crown 8vo, in a handsome and
specially-designed binding, gilt edges, dr.

** Poor Tom Hood I It is very sad to turn over the droll pages of * From Nowhere
to the North Pole,' and to think that he will never msJce the young people, for
whom, like his famous father, he ever had such a kind, sympatheuc heart, laugh of
cry any more. This is a birthday story, and no part of it is better than the first
chapter, concerning birthdays in general, and^ Frank's birthday in particular. The
amusing letterpress is profusely interspersed with the jingling rhymes which children
love and learn so easily. Messrs. Brunton and Barnes do full justice to the writer's
meaning, and a pleasanter result of the harmonious co-operation of author and artist
could not be desired."— T^iw/j.

i6 BOOKS PUBLISHED BY

HOOD'S (T(»ii) HUMOROXT8 WORKS. Edited, with a Memoir,
by his Sister, Francbs Frbbling Brodbkip. Crown Svo, doth extra, wi&
numerons Illustrations, 6s. [In the^u.

HOOD'S (Thomas) CHOIOJES WORKS, in Prose and Verse.

Includini? the Crbam of thb Comic Annuals, ^^th Life of the Audior, Portrait,

and over Two Hundred original Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, ^s. 6d,

** Not only does the volume include the better-known poems by the author, but

also what is happily described as ' the cream of the Comic Annuals.' Such delicious

things as ' Don t you smell Fire f ' * The Parish Revolution,' and ' Huggins and

Duggins,' will never want readers." — Graphic.

**T)xt volume, \iluch contains nearlv 800 pages, is liberally illustrated with facsimile
cuts of Hood's own grotesque sketcnes, many of them pictorial puns, which always
possess a freshness, and never fail to raise a genuine laugh. We have here some of
Hood's earlier attempts, and his share of the ^Odes and Addresses to Great People.'
Then we have the two series of ' Whims and Oddities,' which ought to be prescnbed
for nervous and hypochondriacal people : for surely more mirth was never packed into
the same compass before, more of the rollicking abandonment of a nch, joyous
humour, or more of the true geniality of nature which makes fun so deli^htnil and
leaves no after-taste of unkindness in the mouth. ' The Plea of the Midsummer
Fairies' will be found here in unabridged form, together with 'Hero and Leander,'
a number of Minor Poems, among which we meet with some very pretty fimcies —
the well-known * Retrospective Review,' and * I Remember, I Remember ' —
Hood's contributions to the Gem, including 'The Dream of Eugene Aram,' ' The
Cream of the Comic Annuals' — in itself a mnd of merriment large enough to dispel
the gloom of many a winter's evening — and the ' National Tales.' This is a fair
representative selection of Hood's work& many of which have been hitherto
inaccessible except at high prices. Most of^the best known of his comic effusions—
those punning ballads in which he has never been approached — are to be found in
the liberal collection Messrs. Chatto & Windus have given to the public." — BtT'
mingkam Daily Mail,

HONE'S SCRAP-BOOKS : The Miscellaneous Collections of
William Honb, Author of " The Table-Book," " Every-Day Book," and " Year-
Book " : being a Supplement to those works. With Notes, Portraits, and nume-
rous Illustrations of curious and eccentric objects. Crown 8 vo. \In preparation^
" He has desenried well of the naturalist, the antiquarian, and the poet." —

Crristophbr North.

HOOK'S (THEODORE) CHOICE HTTMOROUS WORKS,

induaing his Ludicrous Adventures, Bons-mots, Puns, and Hoaxes. With a new *

Life of tbe Author, Portraits, Facsimiles, and Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth extra,

gilt, ^s. 6tL,

•* His name will be preserved. His political songs VLn6.jeux d* esprit, when the
hour comes for collecting them, will form a volume of sterling and lasting attrac-
tion ; and after many clever romances of this age shall have sufficiently occupied
public attention and sunk, like hundreds of former generations, into utter oblivion,
there are tales in his collection which will be read with even a greater interest
than they commanded in their novelty."— J. G. Lockhart.

HOPE'S COSTUME OF THE ANCIENTS. lUustrated in

upwards of qao Outline Engravings, containing Representations of Egyptian.

Ottt\L, and Roman Habits and Dresses. A New Edition. Two Vols, royal 8vo«

with Coloured Frontispieces, cloth extra, £^ ss.

" The substance of many expensive works, containing all that may be necessary
to give to artists, and even to dramatic performers and to others engaged in classicsd
representations, an idea of ancient costumes sufficiently ample to prevent their
offending in their performances by gross and obvious blunders.
HORNE.--QRION : An Epic Poem, in Three Books. By Richard

Hbngist Hornb. Wth Photographic Portrait. Tenth Edition. Crown 8vo.

doth extra, 7*.

" Orion will be admitted, by every man of geirius, to be one of the noblest. If not

svery noblest ppeUcal work of the age. Its defects are trivial and conventional.

beauties intrinsic and supreme."— Edgar Allan Pob. wwuvenuonai.

CHATTO 6- Hindus, Piccadilly. 17

ITALIAN MASTERS (DRAWINGS BY THE) : Autotype
Facsimiles of Original Drawings. With Critical and Descriptive Notes,
Biographical and Artistic, by J. Comyns Carr. Atlas folio, half-morocco
gilt. {^Nearly ready.

lENNINGS' (Hargrave) THE ROSICRXJCIANS : Their

^tes and Mysteries. VTith Chapters on the Ancient Fire and Serpent
Worshippers, and Explanations of Mystic Symbols in MonumenU and
Talismans of Primeval Philosophers. Cr. 8vo, 300 Illustrations, 10*. 6d.

JOSEPHIJS (The Works of). Translated by Whiston. Con-
taining both the "Antiquities of the Jews " and the "Wars of the Jews." Two
Vols. 8vo, with 5a Illustrations and Maps, cloth extra, gilt, 145.
" This admirable translation far exceeds all preceding ones, and has never been

equalled by any subsequent attempt of the kind."— Lowndes.

AVANAQH.— THE PEARL FOUNTAIN, and other PAiry

Stories. By Bridget and Julia Kavanagh. With Thirty Illustrations
by J. MoYR Smith. A handsome Gift Book. Small 8vo, cloth, full gilt,
gilt edges, 6*. [/« the press,

KINGSLEyS (Henry) FIRESIDE STUDIES. Two Vols.

orown 8vo, 2zx.

(AMB'S (Oharlea) COMPLETE WORKS, in Prose and

Verse, reprinted from the Original Editions, with many pieces now first
included m any Edition, and Notes and Introduction by R. H. Shepherd.
With Two Portraits and Facsimile of a page of the " Essay on Roast Pig."
Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 7; . 6d.

" The genius of Mr. Lamb, as developed in his various writings, takes rank with
the most original of the age. As a critic he st&nds/acile princes in the subject he
handled. Search English literature through, from its first beginnings until now, and
you will find none like him. There is not a criticism he ever wrote that does not
directly tell you a number of things you had no previous notion of. In criticism he
was indeed, in all senses of the word, a discoverer — like Vasco Nunez or Magellan. In
that very domain of literature with which you fancied yourself most variously and
closely acquainted, he would show you ' fresh fields and pastures new,' and these the
most fruitful and delightful. For the riches he discovered were richer that they had
lain so deep-^the more valuable were they, when found, that they had eluded the
search of ordinaiy men. As an essayist, Charles Lamb will be remembered in years
to come with Rabelais and Montaigne, with Sir Thomas Browne, with Steele and
with Addison. He unites man^ of the finest characteristics of these several writers.
He has wisdom and wit of the highest order, exquisite humour, a genuine and cordial
vein of pleasantry, and the most neart-touching pathos. In the largest acceptation
of the word, he is a humanist."— John Forstbr.

LAMB (Mary and Charles) : THEIR POEMS, LETTERS, and

REMAINS. With Reminiscences and Notes by W. Carbw Hazlitt. With
Hancock's Portrait of the Essayist, Facsimiles of the Title-pages of the rare First
Editions of Lamb's and Coleridge's Works, and numerous Illustrations. Crown
8vo, doth extra, xos. td.

" Must be consulted by all future biographers of the laxsAi^**— -Daily News.
"Very many passages will delight those fond of literary trifles : hardly any
portion will fail in interest for lovers of Charles Lamb and his ^Xxx** Standard

LANDSEER'S (Sir Edwin) ETCHINGS OF CARNIYOROUS

ANIMALS. Comprising 38 subjects, chiefly Earl^ Works, etched by his Brother

TunMAQ r\T his Fafhi»r. wirh T^nf^mrf^e^ DefirrinHnnc. Rrtval A\r%. rl. extra, iw.

i8 BOOKS PUBLISHED BY

LAMONT.— YACHTING IN THE ARCTIC SEAS ; or, Notes
of Five Voyaees of Sport and Discovery in the Neighbourhood of Spitzbergen
and Novaya Zemlya. By James Lamont, F.G.S., F.R.G.S. Author of " Seasons
with the Sea-Horses.'* Edited, with numerous full-page Illustrations, by
William Livbsay, M.D. Demy ^vo, cloth extra, with Maps and numerous
Illustrations, i8j.
** After wading through numberless volumes of icy fiction, concocted nairative,

and spurious biography of Arctic voyagers, it is pleasant to meet with a real and

Senume volume. . . . He shows much tact m recounting his adventures, and
ley are so interspersed with anecdotes and information as to make them anything
but wearisome. . . . The book, as a whole, is the m^st important addition made
to our Arctic literature for a long tim^.*\^Athen€tum.
" Full of entertainmeitt and information." — Nature.

" Mr. Lamont has taken a share distinctively his own in the work of Arctic dis-
covery, and the value of his labours as an ' amateur explorer ' is to be attributed to
the systematic manner in which he pursued his investigations, no less than to his
scientific qualifications for the task. . . . The handsome volume is full of valuable
and interesting information to the sportsman and naturalist — it would be di^cult to
say which of die two will enjoy it mosC* —Scotsman.

LEE (Oeneral Robert) : HIS LIFE AND CAMPAIGNS. By

his Nephew, Edward Lbs Childb. With Steel-plate Portrait by Jbbns, and

a Map. Post 8vo, gs,

"A valuable and well-written contribution to the history of the Civil War in the
United States."— ^a/»fv^^ Review.

" As a clear and compendious survey of a life of the true heroic type, Mr.Childe's
volume may well be commended to the English reader." — Graphic.
LIFE IN LONDON; or, The Day and Night Scenes of Jerry

Hawthorn and Corinthian Tom. With the whole of Cruikshank's very Droll

Illustrations, in Colours, after the Originals. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt,

^5. td.

LINTON'S (Mrs.) JOSHUA DAVIDSON, Christian and Com-
munist. Sixth Edition, with a New Preface Small cr. 8vo, cloth extra, 4*. td.
"In a short and vigorous preface, Mrs. Linton defends her notion of the logical
outcome of Christianity as embodied in this attempt to conceive how Christ would
have acted, with whom He would have fraternised, and who would have declined to
receive Him, had He appeared in the present generation.** — Examiner.
LOST BEAUTIES OP THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: An
Appeal to Authors, Poets, Clergymen, and Public Speakers. By Charles
Mack ay, LL.D. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, ts. 6d.
LONDON.— WILKINSON'S LONDINA ILLUSTEATA; or.
Graphic and Historical Illustrations of the most Interesting and Curious Archi-
tectural Monuments of the City and Suburbs of London and Westminster (now
mostly destroyed). Two Vols, imperial 4to, containing 207 Copperplate En-
gravings, with historical and descriptive Letterpress, half-bound morocco, top
edges gilt, £$ S*-

•»• An enumeration of a few of the Plates will give some idea of the scope of
the Work: — St. Bartholomew's Church, Cloisters, and Priory, in 1393 ; St. Michael's,
Comhill, in 142 1 ; St. Paul's Cathedral and Cross, in 1616 and 1656; Sl John's of
Jerusalem, Clerkenwell, 1660; Bunyan's Meeting House, in 1687; Guildhall, in
Z517 ; Cheapside and its Cross, in 1547, 1585, and 1641 ; Comhill, in 1599 • Merchant
Taylors' Hall, in 1599 ; Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, in 1612^ and 1647 '» AUeyne's
Bear Garden, in 16x4 and 1647 ! Dniry Lane, in 1792 and 1814 ; Covent Garden, in
1732, i794f and 1809 ; Whitehall, in 1638 and 1697 ; York House, with Ini^o Jones's
Water Gate, circa 1626 ; Somerset House, previous to its alteration by Inigo Jones>
circa x6oo : St James's Palace, x66o ; Montagu House (now the British Museum)
before 1685, and in 1804.

LONGFELLOW'S PROSE WORKS, Complete. Including
"Outre Mer,'* " Hyperion,** " Kavanagh,*' "The Poets and Poetry of Europe,"
and Dnftwood." With Portrait and Illustrations by Valbntinb Bromley.
800 pages, crown 8vo, cloth gilt, ^s. 6d.

CHATTO dr* WINDUS, PICCADILLY. 19

LONGFEIiLOWS POETICAL WORK& With numerous fine

Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 7^. 6d.

"Longfellow, in the 'Golden Legend,' has entered more closely into the temper
ot the Monk, for good and for evil, than ever yet theological writer or historian,
though they may have given their lile's labour to the analysis." — Ruskin.

" His are laurels honourably gained and gently worn. 'Without comparing him
with others, it is enough if we declare our conviction that he has composed poems
which will live as^long as the language in which they are written." — Jambs
Russell Lowell.

" Mr. Longfellow has for many years been the best known and the most read of
American poets ; and his popularity is of the right kind, and rightly and fairly won.
He has not stooped to catch attention by artifice, nor striven to force it by violence.
His works have faced the test of parody and burlesque (which in these days is
almost the common lot of writings of any mark), and have come off unharmed."—
Saturday Review,

il AOLISE'S GALLERY OP ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY
CHARACTERS. (The famous Fraser Portraits.) With Notes by
the late William Maginn, LL.D. Edited, with copious Additional
Notes, by William Bates, B.A. The volume contains 83 Charac-
teristic Portraits, now first issued m a complete form. Demy 4to, cloth gilt

and gilt edges, 31*. fid.
" One of the most interesting volumes of this year's literature." — Times.
"Deserves a place on every dra wine-room table, and may not unfitly be removed

from the drawing-room to the ^X9xy7' —Spectator*

MADRE NATURA versus THE MOLOCH OF FASHION.
By Luke Limnek. With 32 Illustrations by the Author. Fourth Edition,
revised and enlai^ed. Crown Svo, cloth, extra gilt, 2J. (id.
*' Agreeably written and amusingly illustrated. Common sense and erudition are

brought to bear on the subjects discussed in it." — Lancet.

MAGNA CHARTA. An exact Facsimile of the Original Docu-
ment in the British Museum, printed on fine plate paper, nearly 3 feet long by
3 feet wide, with the Arms and Seals of the Barons emblazoned in Gold and
Colours. Price s*. A full Translation, with Notes, on a large sheet, 6d.

MARK TWAIN'S CHOICE WORKS. Revised and Corrected
throughout by the Author. With Life, Portrait, and numerous Illustrations.
700 pages, cloth extra, gilt, 7*. 6d.

MARK TWAINS NEW WORK.— THE ADVENTURES' OF

TOM SAWYER. By Mark Twain. Small Svo, cloth extra, 7*. 6d.

*' From a novel so replete with good things, and one so full of significance, as it
brings before us what we can feel is the real spirit of home life in the Far West,
there is no possibility of obtaining extracts which will convey to the reader any
idea of the purport of the book. . . . The book will no doubt be a great favourite
wiih boys, lor whom it must in good part have been intended ; but next to boys, we
should say that it might be most prized by philosophers and poets." — Examirut .

*' Will delight all the lads who may get hold of it. We have made ttie experi-
ment upon a youngster, and found that the reading of the book brought on constant
peals ol^AWf^Xxx:'— Scotsman.

'* The book, which is a very amusing one, is designed primarily for boys, but
oWer people also will find it worth looking through." — Academy.

'* Tne earlier part of the book is 10 our thinking the most amusing thing Mark
Twain has vnritten. The humour is not always uproarious, but it is always genuine,
and sometimes almost pathetic."— ^/Atf«dP7<w.

" A capital boy's hooV."— Standard.

"A bright, readable, and informing book, which we can most cordially recom-
mend to ihe ever-growing class who are on the outlook for such books.*'— A^«i/-
castle Chronicle,

*' A book to be read. There is a certain freshness and novelty about it, a practically

20 BOOKS PUBLISHED BY

MARK TWAIN'S PLEASURE TRIP on the CONTINENT
of EUROPE. Post 8vo« illustrated boards, u.

MARSTON'S (Dr. WesUand) DRAMATIC and POETICAL

WORKS. Collected Library Edition, in Two Vols, crown 8vo, xSj.

" ' The Patrician's Daughter ' is an oasis in the desert of modem dramatic litera-
ture, a real emanation of mind. We do not recollect any modem work in which
states of thought are so freely developed, except the * Torquato Tasso * of Goethe.
The play is a work of art in the same sense that a play of Sophocles is a work of art ;
it is one simple idea in a state of gradual development . . . The * Favourite of
Fortune ' is one of the most important additions to the stock of English prose comedy
that has been made dming the present century." — Times.

MARSTON'S (Philip Bourke) SONG TIDE, and other Poems.

Second Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 8«.

'* This is a first work of extraordinary performance and of still more extraordinary
promise. The youngest school of English poetry has received an important acces-
sion to its ranks in Philip Bourke lAzx^xxiVi."— Examiner.

MARSTON'S (P. B.) ALL IN ALL : Poems and Sonnets. Crown

8vo, doth extra, &r.

" Many of these poems are leavened with the leaven of genuine poetical sentiment,
and expressed with grace and beauty of language. A tender melancholy, as well as
a penetrating pathos, giyes character to much of their sentiment, and lends it an
Irresistible interest to all who can feeL" — Standard.

MEYRIOK'S PAINTED ILLUSTRATIONS OP ANCIl^NT
ARMS AND ARMOUR : A Critical Inquiry into Ancient Armour as it existed
in Europe, but^ticularly in England, from the Norman Conquest to the Reign of
Charles II. ; with a Glossary, by Sir S. R. Meyrick. New and greatly improved
Edition, corrected throughout by the Author, with the assistance of Albert Way
and others. Illustrated by more than loo Plates, splendidly Illuminated in gold
and silver ; also an additional Plate of the Tournament of Locks and Keys. Three
Vols, imperial 4to, half-morocco extra, gilt edges, ^xo los.

"While the splendour of the decorations of this work is well calculated to exdte
curiosity, the novel character of its contents, the very curious extracts from the rare
MSS. in which it abounds, and the pleasing manner in which the author's anti-
quarian researches are^rosecuted, will tempt many who take up the book in idleness,
to peruse it with care. No previous work can be compared, in point of extent,
aurangement, science, or utility, with the one now in question, xst. It for the first
time supplies, to our schools of art, correct and ascertained data for costume, in its
noblest and most important branch — historical painting. 2nd. It affords a simple,
clear, and most conclusive elucidation of a great number of passages in our great
dramatic poets — ^ay, and in the works of those of Greece and Rome — aj^ainst which
commentators and scholiasts have been trying their wits for centuries. 3rd. It
throws a flood of light upon the manners, usages, and sports of our ancestors, from
the time of the Anglo-Saxons down to the reign of Charles the Second. And lastly,,
it at once removes a vast number of idle traditions and ingenious fables, which one
compiler of history, copying from another, has succeeded in transmitting through .
the lapse of four or five hundred years.

MEYRIOK'S ENGRAVED ILLUSTRATIONS OP ANCIENT
ARMS AND ARMOUR. 154 highly finished Etchings of the Collection at
Goodrich Court, Herefordshire, engraved by Joseph Skelton. with Histori<^
and Critical Disquisitions by Sir S. R. Meyrick. Two Vols, imperial 4to, with
Portrait, half-morocco extra, gilt edges, £4 14*. 6d.

**jy« should imagine that the possessors of Dr. Mey rick's former great work
would eagerly add Mr. Skelton's as a suitable illustration. In the first they have
tne mstory of Arms and Armour ; in the second work, beautiful engravings of all
the detaiU, made out with sufficient minuteness to serve hereafter as Datteros for

artists or Wrvr1rm«>n '» /T^m//^.^^..* . JIjT -• .'— ••■« m> p»vi.«*ui> w«

Ben Jonson'a Works.

With Notes. Critical and Explana-
tory, and a Biographical Memoir by
William Gifford. Edited by Lieut.
Col. F. Cunningham. Three Vols.
Chapman's (Gteorge) Complete

Works. Now first Collected. Three
Vols. Vol I. contains the Plays
complete, including the doubtful ones ;
Vol. II. the Poems and Minor Trans-
lations, with an Introductory Essay by
Algernon Charles Swinburne ;

CHATTO ^ WIND US, PICCADILLY. 21

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STOWS SURVEY OF LONDON. Edited by W. J. Thoms,
F.S.A. A New Edition, with Copperplate Illustrations, lai^ge 8vo, half-Rox-
burghe, price 9* .
** Carefully xcproAnctA,**— Quarterly Review.

STRUTT'S DRESS AND HABITS OF THE PEOPLE OF

ENGLAND, from the Establishment of the Saxons in Britain to the Present Time.
With an Historical Inquiry into every branch of Costume, Ancient and Modem.
New Edition, with Explanatory Notes bv J. R. Planch^, Somerset Herald. Two
Vols, royal 4to, with 153 Engravings hrom the most Authentic Sources, beauti-
fully Coloured, half-Roxburghe, £6 6s. ; or the Plates splendidly Illuminated
in Silver and Opaque Colours, in the Missal style, half-Roxburghe, ;^i5 zss,

STRXTTT'S SPORTS AND PASTIMES OF THE PEOPLE

OF ENGLAND ; including the Rural and Domestic Recreations, May Games,
Mtmimeries, Shows, Processions, Pageants, and Pempous Spectacles, from the
Earliest Period to the Present Time. With 140 Illustrations. Edited by
• William Honb. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 7s. Cd.—A few Largk Papbr
Copies, uniform with the *' Dresses," with an extra set of Copperplate Illustra-
tions, carefully Coloured by hand, from the Originals, 5or.

" The amusing paees of Strutt entitle his memory to great respect ; and, borrow-
ing the idea of Dr. Johnson, I will boldly affirm that he who wishes to be informed
of the curious and mteresting details connected with Ancient Manners and Customs,
Costumes, Regal and Ecclesiastical Antiquities, must devote his days and his nights
to the volumes of Strutt.**— Di6din*s Decameron,

CHATTO 6- WINDUS, PICCADILLY. 29

STBXTTT'S BEOAL AND EGCLESIASTIOAL ANTZQUITIES

OF ENGLAND : Authentic Representations of all the English Monaichs, from
Edward the Confessor to Henxy the £t|^hth ; with many Great Personages eminent
under their several Reigns. New Edition, with critical Notes by J. R. Planch^,
Somerset Herald. Royal 4to, with 73 Engravings from Manuscripts, Monu-
ments, &c., beautifully Coloured, half-Roxburghe, ;^ 3^ . ; or the Plates splendidly
Illuminated in Gold and Colours, half-morocco, ;^io zof.

MR, SWINBURNE 'S NE W POEM,
EREOHTHEUS: A Tragedy. By Algernon Charles Swin-
burne. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, dr.

** The easy sweep of his flowing verse suggests anything rather than the idea of
effort. Nor have we ever seen him stronger than in this poem of Erechtheus -
while no one can say. as they are borne along with his melodious numbers, that he
has been betrayed into sacrificing meaning to sound. He seems to have caught
the enthusiasm of a congenial subject ; to have been carried back to the spirit of an
heroic age, to have fired his faney with the thoughts and sensations that might have
animated the soul of a god-bom Athenian in the supreme crisis of his country's
fate. . . . Never before has Mr. Swinburne shoMm himself more masterly in his
choruses ; magnificent in their fire and spirit, they have more than the usual graces
of diction and smoothness of melody. . . . The best proof of the winning beauty of
these choruses is the extreme reluctance with which you bring yourself to a pause
in the course of quotation. You feel it almost sacrilegious to detach the gems, and
it is with a sense of your ruthless Vandalism that you shatter the artist's setting."
— Edinburgh Review^ July. 1876.

MR. SWINBURNE'S OTHER WORKS.

Queen Mother and Hosamond.

Fcap. Svo, sj.

Atalanta in Calydon. A New

Edition. Crown Svo, 6f.

Ohaatelard : A Tragedy. Fcap.

8vo, IS,

Poems and Ballads. Fcap.

8vo, 9J.

Notes on" Poems andBallads."

8vo, \s.

Essays and Studies. Crown
8vo, 1 2 J.

Songs before Sunrise. Crown

8vo, xos, 6d.

Bothwell: A Tragedy. Two
Vols, crown Svo, 12*. 6d.

George Chapman: An Essay.

Crown Svo, fs.

Songs of two Naticms : Dir^,
A Song of Italy, Ode on the
French Republic, Crown Svo, 6s.

William Blake : A Critical

Essay. With Facsimile Paintings,
Coloured by Hand, after Drawings by
Blake and^is Wife. Demy Svo, 16*

Also,

Bossetti's (W. M.) Criticism upon Swinburne's " Poems and

Ballad.s." Fcap. Svo, cloth extra, 3^. 6d,
SWIFT'S CHOICE WORKS, in Prose and Verse. With Memoir,

Portrsut, and Facsimiles of the Maps in the Original Edition of ** Gulliver's

Travels." Crown Svo, cloth extra, gilt, 7*. 6d.

*' The * Tale of a Tub ' is, in my apprehension, the masterpiece of Swift ; certainly
Rabelais has nothing superior, even in invention, nor anything so condensed, so
pointed, so full of real meaning, of bifing satire, of felicitous analogy. The ' Battle
of Uie Books' is such an improvement of the similar combat in the Lutrin that we
can hardly own it as an imitation."— HalLam.

" In humour and in irony, and in the talent of debasing and defiling what he hated,
we join with the world in thinking the Dean of St Patrick's without a rivaL" — Lord
Jeffreys

" Swift's reputation as a poet has been in a manner obscured by the greater splen-
dour, by the natural force and inventive genius, of his prose writings ; but, if he had
never written either the ' Tale of a Tub' or ' Gulliver's Travels,' his name merely
as a poet would have come down to us, and have gone down to posterity, with well-
earned honours."— Hazhtt.

30 BOOKS PUBLISHED BY

SYNTAX'S (Dr.) THBES TOURS, in Search of the Picturesque,
in Search of Consolation, and in Search of a Wife. With the whole of Rowland-
son's droll full-page Illustrations, in Colours, and lafe of the Author by J. C.
HoTTBN. Medium 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, ^s, td,

RHOMSON'S SEASONS, and CASTLE of INDOLENCE.

With a Biographical and Critical Introduction bv Allan Cunningham,
and over 50 fine Illustrations on Steel and Wood. Crown 8vo, cloth
extra, gilt, ^s. td.

THACEERAYANA : Notes and Anecdotes. Illustrated by a pro-
lusion of Sketches by William Makbpeacb Thackeray, depicting Humorous
Incidents in his School-life, and Favourite Characters in the books of his ever];-
day reading. Large post 8vo, with Hundreds of Wood Engravings and Five
Coloured Plates, from Mr. Thackeray's Original Drawings, cloth, full gilt, gilt
top, xzr. td,

" It would have been a real loss to bibliographical literature had copyright difficult
ties deprived the general public of this very amusing collection. One of Thackeray's
habits, from his schoolboy days, was to ornament the margins and blank pag^ oft he
books he had in use with ^ caricature illustrations of ^eir contents. This gave
special value to the sale of his library, and is almost cause for regret that it could not
have been preserved in its integrity. Thackeray's place ^ in Uteratiire is eminent
enough to have made this an interest to future generations. The anonymous
editor has done the best that he could to compensate for the lack of this. He has
obtained access to the principal works thus dispersed, and he speaks, not only of the
readiness with which their possessors complied with his request, but of the abundance
of the material spontaneously proffered to him. He has Uius been able to re-
produce in facsimile^ the five or six hundred sketches of this volume. They differ,
of course, not only in cleverness but in finish ; but they unquestionably establish
Thackeray's capability of becoming, if not an eminent artist, yet a great caricaturist.
A grotesque fancy, an artistic touch, and a power of reproducing unmistakable por-
traits in comic exaggerations, as well as of embodying ludicrous ideas pictorially,
make the book very amusing. Still more valuable is tiie descriptive, biographical.

and anecdotal letterpress, which gives us a great accumulation of' biosjaplucaf infor-
'5 works, reading, history, and habits. Without being

nation concerning Thackeray's 1

a formal biographv, it tells us scores of things that could scarcely have come into
any biography. We have no clue to the sources of information possessed by the
editor. Apparently he has been a most diligent student of his hero, and an in-
defatigable collector of scraps of information concerning his entire literary career.
We can testify only to the great interest of the book, and to the vast amount of curious
information which it contains. >Ve regret that it has been published without the
sanction of his family, but no admirer of Thackeray should be without it. It is an
admirable addendum, not only to his collected works, but also to any memoir of him
that has been, or that is likely to be, wrtttc*."— ^n'/wA Quarterly Ktview.
THOENBURY^S (Walter) HISTORICAL AND LEGENDARY

BALLADS AND SONGS. lUustratcd by J. Whistler, John Tknnikl, A. F.

Sandys, W. Small, M. J. Lawless, J. D. Watson, G. J. Pinwell, F. Walker,

T. R. Macquoid, and others. Handsomely printed, crown 4to, doth extra,

gilt and gilt edges, 3z«.

**Mr. Thombury has'perceived with laudable clearness that one great re^uiute
of poetry is that it should amuse. He rivals'Goethe in the variety and startling in-
cidents of his ballad-romances ; he is full of vivacity and spirit, and his least im-
passioned pieces ring with a good out-of-doors music of sword and shield. Some
of his meaiaeval poems are particularly rich in colour and tone ; the ' Lady Witch,'
'John of Padua,' and, above all, *The Jester's Moral,' are admirable calMoet
pictures. The old Norse ballads, too, are worthy of great praise. Best of all, how-
ever, we like his Cavalier songs ; there is nothiiig of the kind in English more
spirited, masculine, and merry." — Academy.

'* Will be welcomed by all true lovers of art. . . . We must be grateful that
so many works of a school distinguished for its originality should be collected into
a smgle volume.*' — Saturday Review.

. -- J^^^ *»** n°* ^!?jJU«d over such songs as ' Trample, trample, went the roan,* of
The death of Kmg Warwolf ' ?— and who needs to be told that the illustrations are
above pnoB ^lifn ^^hey are by such men as Tenniel, Sandys, Whistler, and the
lamented Fred Walker f ThebookisbeautifuUy got up.'*-JK?»^^/»«/;

CHATTO <5r* WINDUS, PICCADILLY,

TOXTRNBUR'S (Cyril) COLLECTED WORKS, including a
unique Poem, entitled ** The Transformed Metamorphosis ; " and " Laugh and Lie
Down; or. The World's Folljr." Now first Collected and Edited, with Critical
Preface, Introductions, and copious Notes, by J, Churton Collins. Post 8vo,
cloth extra, price xo*. &/. [/» the Press.

TURNER'S (J. M. W.) LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE.
- Founded upon Letters and Papers furnished by his Friends and Fellow-Academi-
cians. By Waltkr Thornbury. A New Edition, entirely rewritten and con-
siderably enlarged. With numerous Illustrations. \Jn, the Press,
TURNER GALLERY (The) : A Series of Sixty Engravings from
the Principal Works of Joseph Mallord William Turner. With a Memoir
and Illustrative Text by Ralph Nicholson Wornum, Keeper and Secretary,
National Gallery. Handsomely half-boiuid, India Proofs, royal folio, £\o'.
Large Paper copies. Artists' India Proofs, elephant folio, ^ao.— ^ Descriptive
Pamphlet will he sent upon application.

** To those whose memories are old enough to go back through any considerable
portion of Turner's life, or who may have seen the majority of the pictures he
painted during so many years of loving labour, it will be at once manifest that no
better selection could have been made of painting^ which could be got at by any
reasonable means. Many of his grandest productions are in this series of engrav-
ings, and the ablest landscape engravers of the day have been employed on the
plates, among which are some that, we feel assured. Turner himself would have
been deiight«l to see. These proof impressions constitute a volume of exceeding
beauty, which deserves to find a place in the library of every man of taste. The
number of copies printed is too limited for a wide circulation, but, on that account,
the rarity of the publication makes it the more valuable.

" A series of engravings from Turner s finest pictures, and of a size and quality
commensurate widi Uieir importance, has not till now been offered to the public ;
nor, indeed, could it have been produced but for the glorious legacy bequeathed to
the country. During his lifetime he exercised supreme control over his works, and
would allow none to be engraved but what he chose ; the large sums, moreover,
paid to him for * touching the proofs,' which he considered equivalent to what he
would have received for copyright, acted almost as a prohibition to such engravings
getting into the hands of any but the opulent.

"It is not too much to affirm that a more beautiful and worthy tribute to the
genius of the great painter does not exist, and is not likely to exist at any future
time.'*— ^r^ Joumal.

TIMES* CLUBS AND CLUB LIFE IN LONDON. With

Anecdotes of its Famous Coffee Houses, Hostblribs, and Taverns. By

JohnTimbs. F.S.A. Numerous Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 7J. 6d,

'^'The book supplies a much- felt want The club is the avenue to general society

at the present day, and Mr. Timbs gives the entree to the club. The scholar and

antiquary will also find the work a repertory of information on many disputed

points of literary interest, and especially respecting various well-known anecdotes,

the value of which only increases with the lapse of time." — Morning Post.

TIMBS' ENGLISH ECCENTRICS and ECCENTRICITIES :

Stories of Wealth and Fashion, Delusions, Impostures and Fanatic Missions,

Strange Sights and Sporting Scenes, Eccentric Artists, Theatrical Folks, Men of

Letters, &c. By Torn Timbs, F.S.A. With nearly 50 Illustrations. Crown 8vo,

cloth extra, ^s. 6a.

*' The reader who would (ain enjoy a harmless laugh in some very odd company
might do much worse than uke an occasional dip into 'English Eccentrics.'
The illustrations are admirably suited to the letterpress."— ^rtf>A<V.

lAQABONDIANA ; or, Anecdotes of Mendicant Wanderers
through the Streets of London ; with Portraits of the most Remarkable
«— drawn from the Life by John Thomas Smith, late Keeper of the Prints
^ ™ «» the British Museum. With Introduction by Francis Doucb. and
Descriptive Text. With the Woodcuts and the 32 Plates, from the original
Coppers. Crowa 4to, half-Roxbui^he, X2S. 6d. original

32 CHATTO ^ WINDUS, PICCADILLY,

ALTON AND COTTON, ILLUSTRATED.— THE COM-
PLETE ANGLER ; or, The 'Contemplative Man's Recreation : Being
^-^^-, a Discourse of Rivers, Fish-ponds, Fisn and Fishing, written by Izaak
^sBS^ Walton ; and Instructions how to Angle for a Trout or Grayling in a
clear Stream, by Charles Cotton. With Original Memoirs and Notes by Sir
Harris Nicolas, MC CM. G. With the 61 Plate Illustrations, precisely as in
Pickerings two-volume Edition. Complete in One Volume, large crown 8vo,
cloth antique, ^s* 6d, •

" Among the reprints of the year, few will be more welcome than this edition of
the ' Complete Angler,' with Sir Harris Nicolas's Memoirs and Notes, and Stothard
and Inskipp's illustrations."— vS'a/Mn^j' Retnetv.

WELLS' JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHKEN: A Dramatic Poem.
By Charles Wblls. With an Introductory Essay by Algernon Charles
Swinburne. Crown 8vo, with Vignette Portrait, cloth extra. 9^.
**The author of 'Joseph and his Brethren' will some day nave to be acknow-
ledged among the memorable men of the second great period in our poetry. . . .
There are lines even in the overture of his poem which might, it seems to me, more
naturally be mistaken even by an expert in verse for the work of the young Shakspeare,
than any to be gathered elsewhere in the fields of English poetry." — Swinburnr.

'* In its combination of strength and delicacy, in sweet liquid musical flow, in just
cadence, and in dramatic incisiveness of utterance, the language throughout keeps
closer to the level of the Elizabethan dramatists than that of any dramatist of sub-
sequent i\vaK%.'*—Ath€ncBum.

WAKRANT TO EXEOUTE CHARLES L An exact Facsimile

of this important Document, with the Fifty-nine Signatures of the Regicides, and

corresponding Seals, on paper to imitate the Original, 33 in. by 14 in. Price 2s.

WARRANT TO EXECUTE MARY QUEEN OP SCOTS.

An exact Facsimile of this important Document, including the Signature of

8ueen Elizabeth and Facsimile of the Great Seal, on tinted paper, to imitate the
riginalMS. Prices*.

WILD'S CATHEDRALS. Select examples of the Ecclesiastical
Architecture of the Middle Ages ; arranged in Two Series (the First Foreign,
the Second English). Each Series containing Twelve fine Plates, mounted upon
Cardboard, and carefully Coloured, after the Original Drawings by Charles
Wild. In a portfolio, £^ 4X. each series.

WILSON'S AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY ; or, Natural History
of the Birds of the United States ; with the Continuation by Prince Charles
LuciAN Bonaparte. New and Enlarged Edition, completed by the
insertion of above One Hundred Birds omitted in the original Work, and Illus-
trated by valuable Notes, and Life of the Author, by Sir William Jardinb.
Three Vols. 8vo, with a fine Portrait of Wilson, and 103 Plates, exhibiting
nearly four hundred figures of Birds accurately engraved and bieautifully printed in
Colours, cloth extnu gilt, ;C3 3^' Also, a few Latge Paper copies, quarto, with
the Plates all carefuUy Coloured by hand, at £6 6s.
"The History of American Birds by Alexander Wilson is equal in elegance to the

most distinguisned of our own splendid works on Ornithology. —Cuvier.

WRIGHT'S CARECATTTRE HISTORY of the GEORGES
(House of Hanover). With 400 Pictures, Caricatures, Squibs, Broadsides,
Window Pictures, ftc. By Thomas Wright, Esq., M.A., F.S.A. Crown 8vo,
cloth extra, 7*. 6d,

" Emphatically one of the liveliest of books, as also one of the most interesting.
Has the twofold merit of being at once amusing and tdjf^ug.**— Morning Pott,
WRIGHT'S HISTORY OF CARICATURE AND OP THE
GROTESQUE IN ART, LITERATURE, SCULPTURE, AND PAINT-
ING, firom the Earliest Times to the Present Day. By Thomas Wright,
M. A, F.S.A. Profusely Illustrated by F. W. Fairholt, F.S.A Large post
8vo, doth extra, gilt, ^s. 6d.
*' A very amusbg and instructive yolwmt" Saturday Review.

J. OGDEN AND CO., PRINTERS, 1 72, ST. JOHN STREET, B.C.

3 2044 038 423 968

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